The road I had to take to appreciate this sunset.

When I was younger, and I mean in my adolescent days, I spent all of my time studying with the illusion that good grades in the tests as well as subsequent exams would catapult me into better schools. Better schools meant that I had better opportunities to enter better universities, better universities meant better chances of landing a job. I believed in meritocracy as much as the next student who sat beside me, unknowingly a competitor, unknowingly hammering away at the books in hopes of being rewarded by the system.

Speaking of which, the system was superficially designed to create the idea of merit based rewards. Get better grades, and you'll get a better job, a better job means more money and financial security.. or so they say. It isn't until you leave the schooling system that you realise everything you thought was true before was just a cover for what really matters. In China, nepotism is rampant and it hardly matters how well you do in school. I'm not saying that education isn't important, not at the slightest, what I'm saying is to strive for being the best (atleast for exam scores) doesn't yield the best opportunities -- those are reserved for the well connected aristocratic class who know this very well and spend more time establishing future connections than paying attention in class.

With all this emphasis on schooling and studies, I never stood still to enjoy my adolescent life as it passed by me, a real regret that I will now go into my middle ages wondering if something could be recouped. I can't complain with my own performance in these early stages, certainly there was a degree of opportunity bestowed upon me through my earnest efforts, I studied in the best high school, and graduated from a top university. I also had the opportunity to advance my studies abroad and see a completely different way of life compared to the society I knew so well at home. My first real job wasn't anything special, atleast not to begin with. I was a receptionist at a well known Financial firm in Shanghai. I applied overqualified because I thought that was the only way I could have a chance of getting in. My hunch was largely right and I did feel like my decision was probably the right one. I got exposed to business processes and company cultures that would be otherwise unavailable to me. I established contacts with the influential. I became friends with the decision makers.

Just like that, I reaped the rewards of nepotism, fully knowing that my competency would be no better than the next employee. Yet, throughout the boom and bust of the Shanghai stock market, I was rewarded with some pretty significant M&A projects which allowed me to build a pretty strong portfolio early on, and then momentum never really ended. Before I knew it, I was in a roaring career in finance and looking at a very bright future ahead.

Everything sounds perfect right? Wrong. I never had any time for family, relationships, or friends. My meetups with people outside work were really just excuses to try make connections relating to.. work. Work life became my life and I didn't know how to live any life outside of that.

It was the norm and people around me praised me for that, but secretly I admired their mostly carefree lives. As long as I could put food on the table, what more could I want? Well, a relationship for starters, before I knew it, I was already one of the left over woman, labelled with the most undesirable label there is for a woman. Too successful, too intelligent, too old for most men. Chauvinism really picks up when you're in your 30's because everybody is too concerned with trying to make a good living. Young women around me quite happily put themselves up to be sugar babies, the ultimate goal, to find a rich second generation man to afford them a carefree life. I don't blame them honestly.. but the cost in retrospect was always too large and I could never follow in their footsteps. I value my body more than financial security, but I understand that I am in an appropriate position to say that, others are not so fortunate.

If i could turn back time again, I would try to convince myself that I could get by in life without the peer pressure of trying to make exuberant amounts of money, that I could enjoy a normal job with an actual life out of work. I would have loved to take my weekends off to travel as I do now, but with the energy I had in my younger days. I don't mind backpacking, and sleeping in hostels. I don't mind budgeting. That's part of the challenge of living a fulfilling and maximised life.

I can only hope that time is still on my side, I may not ever find my knight in shining armour, but I will live a fulfilling life dictated by my own standards, not the standards of my peers, and not the standards of society as a whole. This is what it means to me to be a grown independent woman and I think more young ladies should think about it in the future.