EPISODE V: LIVING IN THE CITY

 

ORIGINAL SERIES SEASON II, EPISODE V

A curious young man wondering what living in a big city could mean for him/Credit/Myicahel Tamburinin

EPISODE V: LIVING IN A BIG CITY

I have been living in the big city for a couple of years now and I am loving it. Loving life in the big city has nothing to do with the various discoveries I have made. I am falling in love with the big city because it is a big city and it embodies an image of possibilities. The city is a big place and that bigness must have opportunities both good and bad. That is what makes me happy in the big city. The thought that the tall buildings and heavy traffic of people might amount into something positive. I never imagined that I will be feeling this way a few years back. I had never lived in a big city before. I sort of grew up in a countryside-not-so countryside. The place I grew up at was a few kilometers from a major town. But it was a town not a city. It was a small town, which I never experienced other than passing while on my way to school.

However, for the big city, I have experienced it first hand and I am loving the vibes and energy. The atmosphere here is different from countryside. For instance, people operate differently. The way people live in a big city is not the same way that people in the countryside live. Most people who move to a major city in their country do so for professional, educational, or business reasons. All of these reasons intersected in the big city. People are here for different reasons. Some are in the big city to advance their education, while others are here for business purposes. In fact, the super majority that I interact with at the Central Business District are mainly in the city for work and business. They are ever busy. They move from one thing to the next. Something is always going on in their lives. And I love this type of environment and lifestyle.

Having different things going on every day is interesting. We all wake up to new days every day. You definitely need something new each day. That is what makes city life entertaining. People never stop. They are on the go every day. Life in a big city is like a dance that never stops. There is enough music and drinks to keep people going. There is always something happening that takes idleness out of the equation. For example, when people are not rushing to work, they are overcrowding somewhere. And the commercial vehicles also try to outdo each other on the road just to keep up with the ultra-competitiveness of the modern world. Life is always happening in the big city. And that is amazing. Actually, all these things make my life in the city totally enjoyable. You just never get enough of everything. You shift from one thing to the next and by the time you are done with one, another thing would have initiated itself.

Seeing all these things makes me think that I made the right decision to study in the middle of the city. You can learn a lot from a window of a classroom. Apart from the events going on inside the classroom, other occurrences happen outside too. This was pure enjoyment for me. The fun came when I combined experiences in the classroom and events taking place outside the classroom. The contrast was not only educational but also thrilling. There was a lot of knowledge one could collect. And I was not going to miss anything, especially if, that anything involved learning something new. One of the striking contrast I observed was that in the classroom people were learning to become what was happening outside the classroom. The interesting part was that most of the learners did not know what was happening outside.

A man seated on the table in the big city/Credit/Pixabay

They were busy engrossed in their own mess. Most enjoyed the idea of independence. They were happy that they were living on their own and making their decisions. As a result, there were a lot of experiments. People were experimenting with different things. Some could try their hand with alcohol for the first time. And they will create entertainment for everyone out of their drunkenness. Others would be out there doing different things that they only could explain. There was no seriousness. People in the classroom were not paying as much attention to their class work as it was necessary. They were exploring life from different angles. They only slowed down after encountering consequences of their illicit activities. Those who made bad choices with their money ended up with no money for food, while those who had perfected the act of missing classes experienced classical failures in their tests.

These learners were not in touch with the real marketplace. They did not know that the marketplace looks different. Inside the classroom people can easily be duped to believe that they are on the right track. That what they are studying will help them get ahead. However, sometimes what one is studying is not enough. The real-business world might require something else that the classroom might not necessarily provide to the learners. And no one tells these learners the truth. They just like their adult counterparts learn very late that their education might not align with what the marketplace wants. That is what I was paying attention towards. The extra thing that the market could require from me that the classroom could not meet. I wanted to be ready. And I was not willing to enter the marketplace half-baked.

So I learned how to connect my worlds. I opened myself up. Keeping an open mind in the big city came across as an advantage to me. I learned so much from all the things that I interacted with every day. People, work, school, and the environment. Everything meant something to me. I never loved the idea of keeping a straight line. There were risks in keeping a straight line and I was not willing to house those risks. I am not the type of person that entertains risks, which could turn into serious threats. I feel like life is best lived exploring different angles of the same thing. This way, you might discover something that can change your life. And the big city changed my life quite literally. I turned from a limited person to a fully-fledged liberal person who embraced life as it came. In most occasions, I did not use bias when examining people and society.          

This was a big step in my life. It meant that I was moving away from my socialization and embracing myself as a person. I was getting out of the minds of other people and learning to see for myself. I was forming my own judgments and interpretations. My decisions and opinions were devoid of other people’s influences. And this was quite a milestone. In the past, I never thought that I would ever make decisions as an individual. My judgments were full of other people’s influences and fragments. The opinions and comments I had were not my honest thoughts and feelings. The environment I came and grew up in influenced me. So I was limited on most occasions. However, the big city freed me. It allowed me to listen to my own thoughts and develop confidence in me. I stopped being afraid of other people.

A corporate man looking at the big city/Credit/Dellon Thomas

And I leaned towards being myself. I discovered a new person in the big city. Things that used to scare me no longer scared me. The city helped me to develop into my own person. I was becoming the person that I was supposed to be away from my parents and siblings. This was a great moment in my life. I have never felt such free and strong. Developing my own voice and learning to voice my own opinions was real progress. The city was growing me up. It was creating opportunities that helped me to untangle from things that used to bind me in the past. Fear, people, and other people’s opinions were no longer my prison. I broke free of them and developed into a bold person. I learned how to trust myself in the big city. I developed my confidence in my decisions and learned to listen to my instincts. A few years back, I was never this person. I was timid and unsure. Now in the big city, I had metamorphosed into a confident person.

I love the person that the big city made. I also love the raw experiences that life offered me in the big city. These experiences were inspiring. They had significant insights for me. And I knew that if I became better at interpreting events, I will make progress. I will become something in the big city. The possibilities that life presented showed me that I would succeed. I just needed to focus and stick with what was working for me. What worked for me in the big city was intersecting my worlds. Experiencing life from different points and converging those points into one arena. I did this to see if, I could make something out of it. Learning to understand life and people at my age was a wise move. The approach was going to make me a great human being in the future.

The lessons that I would have garnered in the present would serve me in the future. For example, in the future, I would have learned how people make mistakes. The big city would have also taught me how to come out of mistakes. Life is interesting right now living in the city. I am loving everything as it happens. I am becoming a new person every day. Making myself open-minded is working in the most incredible way. I did not know that it will bring so much information as it has brought. I am learning from every corner my eyes turn. The big city is turning out to have so much education than what I am getting in the classroom. I love being out here observing. It seems that I learn so much through observation. My judgment has sharpened and I see things for what they are not what other people want them to appear.

I have gotten busy because I have so much to do. I have enough things that keep me busy every day. Juggling, office, school, streets, and my own side projects demand discipline. I can easily lose track. However, I am a focused person. My mind is on specific things. One of those specific things is to make the best out of my time. When I get to work I put in more than 100 percent. And when I get to the classroom I aim to understand. I learned that understanding my subjects is way better than learning how to pass my tests. I need my education beyond the classroom. And passing exams will not help me in real life when I am supposed to think and apply my knowledge. So I am learning for life. If, I work hard in my studies and understand. The knowledge that I acquire from my education will stick with me.

And I will tap into it whenever circumstances require me to use my education. Understanding will make me relate with concepts outside the classroom. This is the type of education I wanted. And the curriculum I am learning from seems to cooperate. I am actually getting value for my money. How I am learning is what I paid for and it means everything to me. I am gradually forming into a professional and sooner, I will make my mark in the world beyond the big city. Who cannot love the big city for what it is doing? I think the big city is over working. It is doing so to create experiences just for me. And I am grateful that I am open enough to see what life and the big city are doing for me. Life in the city is becoming better each day. And I am doing a lot of things. Things that I never thought I would be doing at my age.