Love, life and the pursuit of happiness

Sunset over Doha

When I was around 13 years-old, a teacher thought that it might be a good idea as an ice breaker to go around the class and ask everyone what they would like to be when they grew up. It was the first day of secondary school and I can still remember the apprehension I felt despite the majority of the class being people I had grown up with for seven years prior. It was our first day, and we were trying to seem as grown up as possible.

She got the usual answers: engineer, doctor, lawyer, but I was struggling to figure out what brilliant answer I could give. Something different, something I thought would make the whole class wake up.

Then I got it. The perfect answer.

But before it came to my turn, the boy who sat in front of me quickly whipped round to ask obnoxiously what my answer was going to be and two thoughts immediately entered my mind: I was going to tell him the truth, but not the whole truth to the class.

To the class later, I said I wanted to be an economist. Slightly prophetic for a 13 year-old but more on that later.

To this boy, I said, I just wanted to be happy.

***

Have a good weekend everyone.

(to be continued...)