This
has only hit me when one of my friends, while we're in India, asked me "Do
you regret doing this?" It has been rough couple of weeks, i barely
communicated with any of my roommates, I had my grumpy face for
quite a long time; been through huge fights with my closest person in the
entire world. The idea of regret to me is quite daunting, I believe that every
minute lost in regret is quite consuming for our soul, the epitome of regret is
misery; and I am not ready to haunt myself with such a monster in my 20s. For
god’s sake; I am 23, I am allowed to make mistakes, look dumb, question my
beliefs, fail, celebrate life, travel, eat chocolate, gain weight from
devouring in food, smoke and hang out …and the list has no end.
This question was raised to me while I was going through a discriminatory incident from my workplace. I was pushed, cornered and undermined because I am “An Egyptian Muslim Veiled Woman” that probably was in the back of my boss’s mind as a person who can’t handle big stuff even though her initiative of handling work. This situation broke me down several times in the past week, but still I didn’t feel like quitting the whole program that placed me with this entity or leave India and go back to Egypt, stay with my friends and family and everything will be fine (my comfort zone). If I had done that, I wouldn’t have the guts and preach women to stand still their ground in the future, I would have been betraying all my beliefs, readings and most importantly myself. This was the kind of situations that usually to happen to other people, and I would just tell them how they should react and push them to stand still, but being in the picture, in the middle of all the fuss, you just don’t get to think right, that’s when God sends you the right people who would know how to handle your frustrations.
As much as I had quite a hard time, re-organising my 6 months fellowship all over again after 3 months of settling it, I still don’t regret it.
Actually embarking on this opportunity and living in India for 6 months, I knew it was going to be hard, lots will be tested, I would break down, yes I wasn’t prepared to ignorant racists but that’s life and dumb people are everywhere.
Whatever
hardship you are going through, know that it is just a sample of what you will
face later, and the way you react to it defines you.
