I have been invited to move to Brazil by a very good friend who assures me there are many job opportunities in my field there. She wants me to move and live with her while I look for a job.
I have been there before and there are no reasons I shouldn't go there other than I live in New York. I have lived here for many years, I like where I live and I have friends here. Brazil would probably be more fun and exciting than New York. While I love New York and it can be a great city to live in, it's harder to fully enjoy it when you are not working and are mainly focused on the job hunt. Even when working, there is such a strong work ethic that people mostly hunker down and work, work, work. In general, we don't enjoy life as people from other countries do. Time is consumed resolving work issues, clients, meeting deadlines, exceeding growth targets, competing for the next job, etc., etc. It's a different kind of fun and it is very absorbing. It is also extremely competitive.
Having fun in New York is also about the rich cultural life although when you are working late hours you end up missing most of that. It's also about going to great restaurants and going to the many interesting bars. There is plenty to do for every taste, size, race and creed. Mostly New York is a vortex of energy and it is palpable. All kinds of people are always getting somewhere, doing something, striving for some goal or another, they are always moving, moving, moving...
I have a couple of very close friends - family really - but other than that, other friends live so far that we rarely see each other even though we like and care about each other. So it is complicated to maintain a strong friendship with some of them.
It is interesting how opportunities present themselves. To move to Brazil would represent a significant leap of faith. I'd have to give up my beautiful apartment (a place I have been very happy in) as well as focus on perfecting my Portuguese during the first three months after I arrive, getting used to living with someone while I have been living mostly by myself in New York, etc., etc. On the other hand, there is something about the sheer adventure of it that is very appealing to me. It is risky. I was the child that was always climbing trees and going beyond any reasonable limits because I loved the risk and the danger.
There are other considerations I will have to think about. I have decided to play out the job hunt in New York as far as it goes until the summer and then make a final decision. I strongly believe that life presents us with opportunities that we must examine, assimilate, see how we feel about them and then decide. What one must not do is reject them only because it's not as comfortable as staying where one is and the opportunity represents a big leap of faith. I'll take my time and think about it carefully. Somehow I am confident the answer will be crystal clear soon.
In reality, the type of decision I have to make is in line with what Robert Frost (who also inspired the title of this blog) talks about in his famous poem below:
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20
We'll see what happens. It's fun to see how life unfolds, particularly when one is actually making some decisions along the way that determine its unfolding.
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