Global Citizen

Prologue

The grass is always greener. A phrase that I always hear and in a way is applicable to me most times. Human beings are not perfect. We always want more than what we get. We do... or else there would not be something that we call economy. We crave for something that other people have because we want it. But enough of those serious stuff.

I was born and live a little over half of my life in the Southeast Asian archipelago country, Indonesia. However, I have lived in multiple other countries throughout my life from country as close as Singapore to as far as the USA. Other than during the times some members of my family was studying or working abroad, I pretty much have no family who live outside Indonesia during my time overseas. So when one day my dad told a 14 years old me that I will be sent to a boarding school in what I would say the-middle-of-nowhere America, I was utterly shocked and scared. Actually I lied... my initial reaction was "Hoorayy I'm going on a vacation and moving to America!!". Not until my parents left me at the campus when I realized "Oh shit... I'm on my own."

But we will get into my boarding school days later. I promise it will be a good one. What I can tell you head on is that I never regretted being sent alone to a new country on the other side of the world. Sure it was a tough time for me, but what I got from that place and what I have become is something I still cherish to this day.

College days or what people outside of America call Uni days, was a relief for me. Just like other teenagers who could not wait to enjoy their freedom and enter adulthood, I was happy and excited to live a life which definitely had less rules and regulations. I was embracing further the freedom in life and doing what I want when I want. That is when I also realize I need money to survive especially as I was inching close to graduation. Not that I was not getting allowances from my parents during my school days, but at one point I realized that I need to start making my own money. Unlike some of my Indonesian or Asian peers, I do not have the luxury of a family business to return too. So it was either get a job or unemployment it is which of course I prefer the prior.

After spending years living and studying in the US, I moved back to Asia and started my career in the financial sector, which is such an Asian cliche and of course one of many Asian parents' dreams. Having your child back in Asia with a job in investments definitely is an achievement. However, as I settled back in Asia, I experienced yet another culture shock or, in this case, counter culture shock. As things that I may have find normal in the US may not be back in Asia. Something from as simple as the way I dress to something like the way I behave.

Things get more interesting when I mix it with my experience living in Singapore and the UK, but again we will get to that later. As you live in a certain city or country, you develop a new sense of identity. But what happens when you moved around and lived in different towns, cities, countries, or continents throughout your life? You will see the world through bigger lenses. That sense of identity would mush up creating a new identity and opening up oneself to different perspectives. You would want to take the best of each to be the perfect version of yourself... and that my friends, is what being a global citizen is about.