Am I chasing a mirage?

Or what is it I am chasing?
Or am I just running blind, moving with the flow, with no end in mind?
What is it I am running to achieve?
I work hard. Really hard. I produce great results. But I fail. Miserably. I fail to satisfy all my ambitions. For they are so many. And they are so precious, they are not easy to achieve without focus and dedication. But even with focus and dedication, I fail.
I don’t think my priorities can be described as a mirage. They are simple. They’re the same priorities most people have. Parents, family, and work.
Where these become a “mirage” is when I want to satisfy all three simultaneously to the max.
My parents are getting old. They live alone. They live in Sudan. They raised five children, but none of them stayed in Sudan. For my parents, Sudan is where they have their own house. Sudan is where they feel independent. The word “feel” is important in this last sentence. It’s just a feeling. They don’t have good community ties. They don’t have good health that they can live on their own. They do not have connections to help with their immediate needs. And Sudan is no place to live in like that. To do anything, you need to go do it. There’s no doing anything by calling or through the Internet. And you need connections. Otherwise, you wait, and your needs get dragged and they need even more effort to get completed. That feeling of independence may get satisfied had they had the support required: the children they raised, and the grandchildren who make life what it should be. But again, for these grown-up children and their families, Sudan is no place to live. No satisfying well-paying jobs. No good schools and colleges. They exist, but they are not as good as what these grown-up children are getting abroad.
The children find it hard to consider settling in Sudan. And the parents don’t want to be elsewhere. Stalemate?
I see my career starting to form. “Starting”! Twenty years after finishing medical school. I am finally able to make sense of the different talents I have and put them together in a meaningful way: organization, project design, critical thinking, medical knowledge, people management, and some business skills. Yes, these skills are translatable to other locations, but I’m finally in the right place to make things happen. At scale. And they’re starting to happen. And I’m well looked after, for my efforts and abilities are appreciated and supported, and my development is also supported.
But my parents are getting old. And they need me there.
But I despise working in Sudan. It’s like spinning your wheels working very hard and getting nothing done. And the compensation will not allow me to support my parents or my family. And my kids won’t get the education I would like them to get the world of opportunities they can get here in the States.
I’m chasing a better tomorrow. For me, my kids and my wife. But I’m losing the battle to satisfy my parents. Not only that, but chasing my career also makes me make compromises for my time with my own family.
Am I really chasing a better tomorrow, or am I chasing a mirage?
Wael
14 Dec 2019

Ever wished you were dead?

I have that wish right now. It’s a feeling of extreme frustration. Stuckness. Loss of value because of the many needs from others that I can’t satisfy. Needs that I feel responsibility towards. These needs are important to those “others”. And I should be able to deliver on them. Yet I can’t.
No, I’m not suicidal- just in case your mind goes off-leash. Let’s just get this one out of the way.
I feel responsible for my parents, my family, and my work. These are the immediate responsibilities that I care about the most. The order of these three is problematic. When there’s a pull from one of these three angles of the triangle, which one gets priority while the others have to wait? That’s the cause of frustration. It saddens me that an angle or two aren’t happy. I’m an achiever. I’m a good person. I can’t live with not being able to satisfy my priorities. All of them. And I just can’t satisfy all of them all the time.
Wael
12/14/2019