[life nibbles] A conversation with Nicole

It has been a while since I last worked at Metro Tunnel, I stepped into the storefront on a Friday afternoon, expecting yet another boring, esay and light-hearted shift.

While Tiff was upstiars, Nicole stepped down for a brief moment to cover Tiff, it was then we had a decent conversation, or more so, Nicole's own inspiration speech to me as big sister figure.

She asked me how I am doing, and then for absolutely no reason at all, she aske me, 'so how are you feeling about med school?'. Caught off-guard, I said, 'well I suppose it's going okay, but I am still not 100% sure about it.' Then she launched into her speech, of which I have listed the main points below:

Looking back, I made a lot of decisions in my younger years to impress my parents, or sometimes even to my meself. But you shouldn't do things just to impress yourself.

As you get older, you will realised that you will want things besides a career, you will want a family, you will want work life balacne. What they say about 'do what you love' is very misleading because it makes you think that you need to find a job that you feel so passioate about the you feel okay doing it at 3 am. But you don't need to. (我的理解：it is a trap set up by the captalist society so that they can employee less people with more output).

Things she mentioned about starting a family really made me to start to think about, firstly if I would want a family/kids down the track, secondly how 'normal' people envision life trajectories and how much mine differs from theirs.

At this stage, I still do not think that I would want to have kids in the future, I do want to date more people and potentially get into a long term relationship. BY NO MEANS do I think that I should find a job with good work-life balacne just to prepare for the possibility of having a 'conventional life' in the future, I am always a firm believer in do what you want to do now and everything else will fall into the jigsaw accordingly.

However, I do see the necessity to constantly reflect on my feelings towards whether to become a doctor in the future and how I feel about this occupation (and it is nothing more than just an occuption, which then makes me wonder if I want to be defined by my occupation alone, which will likely be the case if I do not marry or have kids. But even if I do have a family, what do definitions such as a mother, a wife mean though? What exactly do I want in life?)

What do I want in life then?

A stable income, a job that I feel passionate about, for sure, a dog, good sex, sports, travel, someone to talk to, be it a friend or a partner. Good food maybe. Read a bit, write a bit. A good amount of socialising but not too much, just the occasional chat that goes on until 4 am, and even that, twice a year would be enough.

That's it. Looking at them, I don't think that it's a lot to ask and I think they are absolutely achievable.

Nicole also said,

I never thought that I would have my own house at the age of 26 (I know it is in Bacchus Marsh but still), I like my job enough that I do not mind coming in and do my job and still finish it by 5 everyday. You don't have to aid so high to try to impress yourself. A job is just a job. You will still be able to get to where you want to be at everntually.

My friend Maddie, who used to work as a dietian 5 days a week, found that it was too draining and decided to work 2 days a week as dietian and for ther other 3 days she works as xxx (I fotgot soz) where she can just come in, work, and leave. She is doing very well and is very happy about her life in general (this is my summary based on Nicole's description).

I have to admit that her workds sounds vey enticing, almost alluring as it did a good job destressing me, knowing that I will get to wheverever I want to head to in the end. At the same time, it also gave me a peek into what working class Aussies think and I envy them, a lot. It sounds like that they do not worry about life or work too much, and everything is easy breezy. It also made me doubt whether it is worth it to spend so much time and effort to become a doctor where you pretty much work yourself to death, but of course, every thinks differently.

It ties into what Frank and I was talking about on our ride to city yesterday - why work you arse off to become a surgeon and retire in like less than 10 years when you can be a GP at around 30 and go into, say, the nursing home industry. Good food for thought, I supposed.

Also it is great now that I do not work too much, I definitely enjoy the alone time that I do not normally get - think, reflect, do exercise, cook, they are the real necessities in life <3