What's wrong with you, so many people want to enter but can't.
On Sunday evening, Minh Anh, 27 years old, turned on the computer and wrote a letter of resignation for the third time in two months.
She has worked at a bank since graduating from university. The job has a stable salary, a beautiful office, and the company name is enough to reassure her parents whenever relatives ask: "Where is your daughter working now?".
But for nearly a year now, Minh Anh has been constantly thinking about quitting.
She is no longer interested in work, often returning home after 9 pm and some mornings sitting in the car in front of the company door for a very long time before being able to walk in. A friend introduced her to work for a smaller business, salary decreased but the job was exactly what she wanted to pursue.
Minh Anh intended to accept it.
Until she called to tell her mother.
“Mom just asked:'What's wrong with you? You're working in such a good place, so many people want to come but can't, why do you just want to start over?', Minh Anh recounted.
She closed the computer and deleted the petition.
The next morning, she went to work again as if she had never intended to leave there.
What makes Minh Anh embarrassed is not that she doesn't know what she wants. She knows quite well. What she doesn't know is whether she can stand the feeling of becoming a child that disappoints her parents.
One person is afraid of quitting a "stable job", one person does not dare to leave the profession chosen by their parents
Hoang, 29 years old, got stuck in a different way.
He works as an engineer at a large enterprise, in the same specialty that his parents oriented him from high school. In the family, Hoang is always mentioned as a "good student, stable job".
But after six years, he wanted to switch to the business field.
Hoang took extra classes in the evening, saved money and was once invited by a friend to work together. He calculated that if he failed, the money he had would still be enough to cover nearly a year.
The only thing you haven't been prepared for is talking to your dad.
Every time I intend to speak, I remember my father once telling me that he borrowed money for me to study at university, and then the sentence my father often said was just hoping you have a solid career, don't be as precarious as my father was before," Hoang said.
You keep going to work.
During the day, Hoang completes the work that he wants to be less attached to. In the evening, he reads documents about the field he wants to switch to. Two years have passed, the resignation plan is still in a folder on the computer.
Afraid of mother's tears
If Minh Anh is afraid of making her parents lose pride and Hoang is afraid of abandoning the family's efforts, Thu Ha, 25 years old, is afraid of something more difficult to name: Mother's Tears.
Ha once got a new job in Ho Chi Minh City. She wants to leave her hometown, live independently and try another environment after three years working in a unit near her home.
When Ha reported the news, her mother was silent and then cried.
She did not forbid her son from going, but only said: "Parents only have two children, now if you also go far away, who will stay home".
Ha refused the new job.
She told her friends that the salary was not attractive enough. But Ha herself knew that was not the real reason.
“Sometimes I get annoyed because I think my parents keep me. But thinking back, my mother didn't even force me to stay. The person who doesn't dare to leave is me,” she said.
Three young people, three different circumstances, but together stuck in one point: The career decision that belongs to their lives is closely associated with the feeling of having to reassure their parents.
When "making parents feel secure" becomes the reason to stay
Family expectations do not necessarily appear as commands.
Some parents just say "that's good". Some people recount the years they sacrificed for their children's education. Some people do not object but are sad when their children want to change jobs, quit their jobs or go far away.
The rest happened in the minds of the children.
They imagine their parents will be disappointed. They think quitting a stable job means wasting the degree they have learned, betraying their parents' investment, or proving that the family's previous choice was wrong.
Therefore, some people do not rest even though they are tired every day. Some people postpone their decisions for another six months, a year and then many years. Some people tell their parents that the job is "still stable", while they only hope not to have to return to the office the next morning.
The paradox is that they stay to reduce their parents' worries, but prolonged stay can make them increasingly dissatisfied with their work and family.
