Xiaogang, stop studying and come out to work with us. You can earn several thousand dollars a month.
In-depth restoration: What is the life of an ordinary worker like?
At the age of 16, you were rebellious, playful, skipping classes to go to Internet cafes, and eventually dropped out of school early. You went out to work with your friends from the same village. Since you had no education and no skills, you could not do most of the jobs, and finally you could only enter an electronics factory with food and accommodation provided.
At 18, you are tired of the factory life, working the same old 12 hours a day, feeling like a machine, and even tired of going to the Internet cafe you once loved the most. Now you have no goals at all, and you feel like a zombie every day. You don't know when this life will end. You suddenly miss the days when you were in school, but you can never go back.
At the age of 20, after working for a few years, you have seen the prosperity and glamour of big cities. Unwilling to work in a factory all your life, you decisively choose to resign. However, the outside world is not as easy as you imagined. Without academic qualifications and skills, you find that you really can't make any progress.
Finally, you had no choice but to go back to work in the factory to make money. At the age of 22, you had a girlfriend and gave her everything you had. Just when you thought she would marry you, she turned around and fell in love with a man who was richer than you. The ruthless ridicule hit you hard. From then on, you never found a girlfriend again, and lived a life where one person was full and the whole family was not hungry.
At the age of 25, I went back to my hometown and met my former junior high school classmate, who was already working in a large Internet company with an annual salary of more than 200,000 yuan. Only then did you realize that studying hard could lead to such a good job, unlike yourself who can only earn a meager income by selling physical labor.
At the age of 28, most of your friends have married and started a family, but you are still single and don’t want to find a partner. But your parents are very anxious and often call you every few days to urge you to go home for a blind date. In the end, you have no choice but to compromise. You feel that he is not your type, but you don’t refuse. You choose to make do because you still have nothing now and you can’t find a partner by yourself.
At the age of 29, you got married. This wedding not only used up your little savings, but also emptied your parents' pension money. Your parents borrowed money to buy your wedding house in the county town. From then on, you were burdened with 30 years of housing debt. Your father, who is nearly 60 years old, is still hunched over and moving bricks at the construction site to pay off the debt. You suddenly feel very sad. Not only did you fail to let your parents live a good life, but you also made them suffer with you.
At 30, you have a child, and the family expenses are getting bigger and bigger. You quarrel about money every day. Marrying you is the thing I regret most in my life. I can't make money and I have no ability at all. You suddenly miss the days when you were single, and don't know why you bought a house, got married and had children. From 3 to 13 years old, the child started to go to kindergarten. You are content with mediocrity and want your child to be successful. In order to give your child a good learning environment, you once again boarded the train to work outside.
At the age of 40, you chose to return to your hometown to work because you had some savings. Although the salary was not as high as outside, it was good to be with your family without being separated. Although his attitude towards you was still not very good, you chose to endure it for the sake of the children.
You are 43 years old and your child is in junior high school. You are often called to school by the teacher every other day. You often beat and scold him for this, hoping that he will cherish the opportunity to study, but he is just like you did back then and simply doesn't listen.
At the age of 46, he failed to get into high school and wanted to drop out to work, but you did not agree and forced him to go to a private technical secondary school. You hoped that he could learn a skill so that his future life would be easier.
At the age of 55, you look at the woman who has been with you for so many years, and suddenly you feel a little distressed. Although she has always been indifferent to you, she has indeed contributed a lot to this family. Thinking of how you have never let her enjoy any happiness in this life, you decide to take her out for a walk.
At the age of 58, your son suddenly told you that he didn't want to get married in this life, and his wife was so anxious that she couldn't sleep at home. But you are calm, whether to get married or not is his own choice, marriage is not a necessity in life, and sometimes living alone does not mean being unhappy.
At the age of 70, you were lying on a hospital bed. Your son had married and had a family, and he came to see you with his wife and children.
Looking back on your life, you wanted to live a life of glory, but in the end it turned out to be mediocre. Dreams are really vulnerable in the face of reality.
If you could live your life again, what would you choose?