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Writer's pictureAnisha & Joel ~ A&J

ForeignER to ForeigNET

Money = Success.


We are 26. And this is what we thought for 22 years of our lives.


After watching the cries of a very unhappy and confused young woman on YouTube, who was born in India and kept thinking her happiness lay elsewhere and started chasing continents far and wide and away from her home soil, only to discover it all meant nothing and she truly looked in shambles, unsure of what to do, where she was in life. I’m not even sure the realization even hit her or will hit her anytime soon, that the chase she’s onto has nothing worthy at the end of it, infact, nothing at all.


It’s miserable when people think that the “action” is taking place "someplace else" and that’s the place where they need to be.


And so off they go, taking huge loans to study and hopefully settle and make a life for themselves overseas. Hoping that one day they’d rise above the situation and save up enough to be able to buy their own home, their own car, and travel the world…


…Only to be faced with so many unpleasant circumstances that lead down a very dark road with no light at the end of it.


Circumstances that get them to do things they’d never have thought of doing for the sake of MERE SURVIVAL. Choosing to do these things to just pay for basic needs in the hope to one day achieve a lavish and luxurious lifestyle... the sort of lifestyle that even after suffering so much to achieve never makes you feel satisfied at the end, no matter how much you earn or spend.


 

When Cost of Living outweighs your salary, you're being set up...

 

Sure, going abroad living a sheen of a different green, the other ostensibly greener appearing fragment of the lawn is... Good, Very Good.


But at what Cost?
Critically weigh out - The Opportunity Cost.


Don't get sold short on some fraudulent trade channel that weighs a little of your flesh for prostitution and utilizes your baggage space for smuggling drugs.


Many of the countries have built a plush facade on luring you in and slaying you like a salmon.

To burst your little fragile bubble of security.

The metal detector you pass through is as biased as it can be.

It plunders the helpless

BUT embraces


1. Criminals

2. Jihadis

3. Traffickers

4. Weapons and Drugs

5. Money launderers


You name it and the dry-cleaned puppet-masters above the deceitful table - have snuck it in through the willing and forced slaves.


Education, Government and Law Enforcement are very much in on the sinister conveyer belt, that has to dismember you into different avenues of profitability for "THEM", NOT you, "THEM".


Only one of you can ridiculously benefit.


A mutual benefit is not beneficial enough to the System.

Stranding you is a Homerun for the System; it can start stripping you of off any logical choice you would've made if the circumstances were better.


There's not a lot of navigation you can do inside the gutter of despondency.


The System:

A hand quite comfortable in the glove, it's an ancient path when hands meet under tables to discuss the state of affairs, who moves where and how do you ransack and plunder each pair of eyes with this mystical nonexistent thing called a "dream".


There's also already a plan in motion to shoot you back home to where you ambitiously sprung up from, once they're done plundering you in every facet.



If you negotiate yourself a 'Crazy', as in 'Good deal' in whatever sphere, going abroad or staying at your homeland...

Make sure they're not enslaving you by your momentary inflamed desire...


Through inflated rates on

1. Loans

2. College Education

3. Visa or Citizenship


You don't need that sort of a deal just...

To touch base and call yourself a "foreign return".


The Conniving System is designed to lay a “siege” onto your backpack and begins wringing into your perceived feelings of “Security” and “Legitimacy” in a foreign land.

The more they wrestle you beyond the line of legitimacy by giving you crisp visa deadlines, the harder they can capitalize on fining and taxing the crap out of your sorry and abused skull.


Don't agree to a partial deal.

By any ethnicity, and you'll be boss in every city of the earth. Both at Home and Overseas.


 

To,

The Aristocracy.

The Unified Table.


“I don't want to be a dog in a fur coat… But a freakin' Horse that neighs in your face after smashing you.”

 

So, after much analysis, we came to fathom that money was never the answer.


What does one need to lead a good life?


Food.

Clothing.

Shelter.



An average farmer has all these things. He grows his own food. He makes his own clothes. He has built his own home at his farm. He’s good to go.


Until…


He’s shown the “lifestyle” he "thinks" he needs to have on that troublemaking device called the “phone”.


The city life with tall towers, shining cars and blazing honks.

Our culture has weaned us so quickly and tersely from knowing these essential elements to survival — how to grow our own food, how to fix things, etc. — that we don’t even know what we want from life and what our purpose is here.


The Stinking Rat Race.

We are put to score and compete from birth.


All to get a job that pays. That promotes. That gives you the lifestyle. “The 6-figure salary”


But all these things don’t make one happy.



The higher the building floors get, the lower the levels of satisfaction and happiness in people. (And the moral fiber levels are absent)


I wish we as a generation take wise counsel, rethink the FALSE NARRATIVE being pushed by the internet propaganda, and not go headway first to be last in line and preference in a "1st world" country, just for the sake of a more "elevated" life experience. (the reality is shockingly different from what you see on YouTube and social media and websites of these "esteemed" nations)


I, Joel, have always maintained:


Contentment is the Mission.

Money, for me, has always been a tool. Nothing more, nothing less.


I believe my God will give me what He has destined for me, and I’ll not have a problem walking into what’s meant for me, as the head only, and never as the tail. So, I’m good.


The Wordsmith family condemn when youngsters especially feel pressured to do something they don’t want to. For any reason — social pressure, family expectations, or their own immaturity.


Pressure can make a lot of people do bad things and that steam needs to be blown off.



You shouldn’t even open a pressure cooker that has steam built inside of it, lest it burst, and the consequences be horrendous. How much more a human being who’s meant for a very specific greatness that God has willed for him uniquely to accomplish!


So, obviously, after having our fair share of seeing what money has to offer, and the limitations of satisfaction that money can bring… we can say:


Money ≠ Success

For us:


Success = Contentment

It’s time we stopped equating “happiness” with “money” and the “lack of money” with “having an unfulfilling life”.


The farmer does more productive work than a person in a glass building enclosure could do as a “sales analyst for a so-called reputed conglomerate”.



 


From Expat to Homecoming
// poetry

A little puddle gone big
The expansive Ocean a Handiwork
The Creator's brushstrokes meticulously fresh
Sculpted perfection with the unparalleled quirk.

An astute sense should one develop
In this envelope of a mirage around
The mass axing mouse trap
Commonplace beauteous mirages getting us bound.

Continents and separations
Conditions altered and that naturally occur
With a proper eye gauge seeking cost-benefit
The potentially stuck won't be a perpetual 'Stuckard'.

The cheap soil
Is the deep soil
Locally sourced milk and wheat
Seldom comes with a despairing spoil.

Not all that glitters is gold
Destiny thief chuckles over every dream he's sold;
Laid siege on your crumpled pocket through deceit
So cold...foreign debit card has a perpetual fold.

The Creator's loving arm strengthens a man
Wherever He shepherds His Fold
Sometimes the worst Nightmare is
The palatial foreign mirage that's most sold.


 

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