Over the years, everyone has their own story about “leaving.”
Every story is worth listening to.
Interestingly, many of the stories people tell are actually the stories of their friends.
For someone who has dedicated the better part of a lifetime to an education system, being in the inner circle often brings more insight and deeper understanding than the average person. Sometimes, even if you want to bury your head in the sand like an ostrich, you simply cannot.
One day, upon realizing that the future direction of education was being bent purely for the development and competitive needs of a certain place and country, “leaving” seemed like the only choice.
To be honest, the moment I truly left and stood on foreign soil, I sometimes couldn’t believe that I had actually left.
But life is intriguing. For me, the motivation to leave the comfort zone was always just one thing: my “children.”
Even so, I am full of gratitude. Because of the “children,” when the second half of my life began, I was granted the opportunity for rebirth.
Having laid down my old shackles, I discovered that the scenery along the way was beautiful.
Moving from a concrete jungle to a town surrounded by greenery, my days, besides busy housework and accompanying my children, are spent tending to the large lawn in our backyard.
In the past, I had never seriously grown plants; they were merely decorations, mere ornaments for the home.
But today, I have spent two years researching them. I am fond of sunflowers—not just for their beauty when they are in full bloom, but because I am conquered by the little sunflower seedlings I planted in the grass.
The wind in the UK is different from that of my hometown; the gales here can be fierce. Yet, seeing sunflowers growing in the wild, exposed to the elements, showing such strength against the wind, one cannot help but reflect: isn’t this a philosophy of life worth learning?
I once planted sunflowers in a greenhouse, but gradually discovered that the stalks grown in the greenhouse were far weaker than those in the wild; conversely, those that endured the wind and rain and grew in the wild soil only became increasingly robust.
Looking at the sunflowers for a moment, he smiled.
He looked back at his child, not far away, playing football with a friend—is he not also a sunflower seedling, growing strong against the wind?
But unlike before, the air he breathes and the nutrients he absorbs are different—
Naturally flowing, unconstrained by design.
To have a choice is, in fact, a blessing; having the freedom to choose one’s own future is something that should be deeply cherished.
How strange and wonderful life is.
Why say this? Because if not for the chance my children gave me, I would still be that person trapped day after day within four office walls, staring at company performance reports on a computer screen.
At the moment of leaving, I once said, “I will take my children to see the world.”
But now, I find it is, in fact, the “children taking me to see the world.”
