Studying in the U.S. is a fast-paced day-to-day experience, but many times it feels like you're just keeping busy for the sake of being busy, lacking a real sense of purpose.
In the beginning, I didn't really want to fit in with the Chinese and always wanted to do what I liked, but now I find that my social circle is getting narrower and narrower.
Life gradually lost momentum, always feel that the various restrictions in front of them to make their own hands and feet, the courage has become smaller, do things fearful.
Although the eyes have become wider, the mind has instead become narrow and prone to bull's-eye.
Seeing the achievements of classmates around you in school or work, you can't help comparing and being jealous, and you are afraid of the social occasions here, so you pretend to be optimistic and positive on the surface, but most of the relationship stays at a shallow level, and it is hard to communicate in depth.
Watching friends in their respective fields farther and farther, but because of the gap in the start, I now have little to gain, the heart is inevitably some anxiety and loss.
Hello, I'm Wan Peng, the listener.
From your sharing, I can feel that this step you took from home to abroad was a brave self-challenge and breakthrough. You took the initiative to broaden your horizons and come to a completely new environment.
You were initially reluctant to get stuck into the Chinese scene, which reflects your willingness to move beyond cultural habits. Our culture is indeed characterized by fierce competition and a love of comparison, so it's natural that you felt that way at first.
But somehow, in the process of expanding the circle encountered a bottleneck, but instead let the scope of socialization shrink, that is to say, in the breakthrough of the road, you are temporarily stuck, failed to expand the social network.
In this frustrated situation, you look back at the circle of Chinese people around you and realize that everyone seems to be progressing quickly in their studies or work, and you seem to be lagging behind again.
What are your feelings at this point? Would there be envy or jealousy of your fellow man? Feeling disappointed in yourself? Or do you realize the backlash?
It's really hard for a person to leave a familiar culture and fight in a foreign country. The process can be repetitive, arduous, and even self-doubtful.
Expanding our insights and circles is good, but it doesn't mean we have to completely negate our original cultural foundation. Perhaps we need to be more tolerant and delve deeper into our roots before reaching out so that we have solid support to grow upward like a big tree.