Brought Up To Fail !!

Ever since I stepped my foot back in my country, I started to realize something.. something that I used to find quite regular and very normal, but I think those years I spent out of the sand box, made me see some things from a different prospective than many.. I had a conversation with a friend last night.. very interesting observation we both ended up with.. let’s stop for a second and try and pull back a little.. let us take me as an example.. when I graduated and I moved back home, I was 25. I lived good amount of years on my own, doing everything by my self. I was somehow self dependent.. I say somehow, cos I had a scholarship and didn’t have to work.. I had enough grades in high school to get a full scholarship.. so my dad didn’t pay for me, other than the occasional wire transfer for a birthday, or some other passing occasion.. I remember having many American friends.. those friends used to work and go to college at the same time.. I have always admired them.. they were fighting the real fight.. I mean, I for one was supposedly on a student budget, and that means I have all my needs met, but I don’t have the luxurious life style I used to have back home.. I was in restraint from buying a supper doper fancy car for example.. My car, was quite regular in the Kuwaiti standards, but was a shock and awe to the American standards.. As much as I thought I was also struggling as a student, when I look at how my friends were living their lives, I would always wind up shutting my mouth.. This is not the subject.. it’s just a glimpse to show you where this subject is going.. those friends of mine started shaping their personality when they were 15. they worked with minimum wage jobs, started forming an identity very young.. and in the age of 18, they were out in the limp.. they had to face the real world and work their selves up from scratch.. on the other hand, I look back at my life when I was a teen, and what did I see?? I saw a wild teenager that had everything, and still not satisfied with what he had, and always looked at who is more fortunate than him, and asked to get what they have.. never even thought of work, cos in Kuwait and in that age most likely, the family won’t agree for you to work.. It is a sign of being underprivileged, and in need.. so parents most likely forbid their children from starting their independency early in life for the sake of not gossiping about the family or for the sake of them not ending up being the talk of the town… Does anyone in Kuwait remember the teenage Kuwaiti girl who started working in McDonald’s? I remember it was few years back, she started working there on her summer vacation, and she was surrounded by the press for doing that.. She was in news papers.. What about the other Kuwaiti girl who decided to work at starbucks? I remember how people used to fill that certain starbucks, just to get a glimpse at her in uniform working.. Living in Kuwait is such a delicacy.. I mean, we all go on in lives with most of our needs met.. as a matter of fact, we go on in lives with most of our wants met as well.. but that advantage has another side to it.. Having the mind set of dependent on parent’s money.. and what that does to the individual, is create the sense of dependency on the family. So, In Kuwait, you will always be with your family to find what you want.. If you are single, (male or female), living in Kuwait, you are most likely living at home with your family taking care of you. No matter how old you would get, you have to always be with the family, you can not leave the house and establish your own independence, unless you decide to have your own family.. If that person is ready to get married, then that person is free to leave the house and start a life of independency, other than that, the culture forbids us to leave our families. In fact, the culture convinces us that you will fail as an individual if you detach your self from your family and try to build your own entity without having a family of your own or your existing family to take care of you.. Back to my conversation with my friend, we are both guys who have decent jobs, I have joined the club of the big three O (30) recently, my friend is an architectural engineer who is going to join my club in a year or so.. and both live in a little room at home with our families, and we are unable to convince our parents to leave the house and live on our own. My dad believes if I leave the house, people will start gossiping that something is really wrong happened between me and my family, and that my dad kicked me out.. Where my friend’s mother would have had a heart attack thinking that the only reason for her son, the to be thirty year old eldest son, to leave the house is to sleep around with girls and drink his life away.. Our families are similar when it comes to this subjects in a way, although we have a different backgrounds when it comes to how conservative or liberal our families are.. but both of us are raised to believe that if we get on a plane and move to a different country, we are bond to fail to make it on our own. It’s part of how we were brought up, thinking that I will have nothing if I don’t have my family with me.. and both of our parents believe that too.. they believe that we will break and live a life of poverty if we try to make it on our own outside the family environment, and out of this country.. I have seen people fight the real fight from early age, working two jobs, and going to school.. they made it through.. they did well.. they understood the meaning of independence, and really understood the value of their earnings.. and those people can travel anywhere on this planet, and they will survive, cos they were trained to survive no matter how hard it would get.. On the other hand, most of us are brainwashed to fail, unless we have a family to support every move we make.. In the end, if you are a man, you are convinced that you can’t make it without having a family support, and if you are a woman, you are convinced that you can’t make it without a family or you’ll be crushed in the real world. So, to leave a family, you need to join another family, or you will fail..