Make your choices in life inch perfect!

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ariane
by ariane
03-Mar-2010
 

Many years ago, when I graduated with high honors, I was a rising star with a bright future and good job offers in hand.

Living in a foreign country for a family boy like me was too much. It was directly post September 11th. Discrimination was at its peak and a crying mother at the airport didn't help either. I wanted to go back to Iran. Khatami was in power and Iran was a better place after a long time. Plus I would get to be with a family that supported me and loved me so much.

Everybody, including my family members advised against it. You won't be able to live in Iran, people are different, You will be off your career track and you won't be able to make it back on the saddle again should you choose to go back , and so and so forth were the arguments.

I was thinking, I can serve my country as little and limited as I can too. It was, in my head, the perfect choice.

So it began, I went to Iran, started to work on national water projects, and for a brief period I was happy.

I moved forth and back the four remote corners of that land, enjoyed the experience of delivering to the people who needed delivery. I worked and toiled away.

Then life in modern Iran kicked in. Cut a story short, from the most private and intimate experience of mankind, that is marriage, to conducting the simplest of transactions in that society, not a single person I met treated me with ethics and honesty.

Few years than road when the joy of service could not be replaced with agony of social bankruptcy of the Iranian society, I decided that I can't take it anymore. I had to go out. Divorced, conned and bittered, and a CV full of unconventional names of places that I have worked in, I left Iran, the land of my forefathers. I used to hate it when I had to leave Iran for a business trip. This time however, to my eternal dismay, I was happy to be at the transit lounge of IKA airport. I gambled years of my prime and I have lost. Time to start all over again.

As we speak, although I have qualifications as good as any of my international peers, I find it that I have to work an equal amount of work I spent in Iran, if not more, to regain the lost years and adopt myself to the professional life abroad. Plus the elevated discriminatory environment of the current world towards Iranians doesn't help either.

I don't regret giving my homeland a benefit of the doubt; neither do I regret my experiences there. It was part of life and I had to go through it.

The only regret I have is that my beloved homeland has become a dream destroying factory. Why does it expel its sons and daughters from her bosom in trend that has been repeating itseld over and overagain thorugh the history? I'm not making a political statement; the social implications of modern Iran are much more serious than we all tend to think. It will bring the country to a verge of social collapse sooner rather than later. If the suitable action is taken today, it will take at least two generations to make amends.

I just hope that when the action is finally taken, it's not too late.

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I wish you all the best my

by ariane on

I wish you all the best my friend.

 

This matter is about personal choice and values. I'm sure there are advantages, but then again it depends on your degree of tolerance and if you are find them worthwhile.

I expressed a personal expereince, what didn't work for me, may work for you and vice versa.

 Good luck with your choice, and stay safe.


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ariane jan

by KouroshS on

I wish that "someone" that you are trying to help best of luck.

I completely agree with you on these social implications and i am not denying that they do not exist. Yet I have to disagree with you, Given all the Uncertainties and unpredictibilites that exist in iran, There must be advantages as well. I could not disagree with you more when you portray this society as one within which one can be prepared for what is to come or what is coming his way, particulary given this horrible economic climate filled with all kinds of Uncetainties.

And you do not need to be a monk or check in to a monestary in order to keep a normal life. How do you define Being "safe"? Why does dealing with people have to not feel safe? Don't you deal with people in your daily life and do you always feel safe? Come on. More than likely, You will not feel safe if you have an ongoing spat with some Gov. agency. Other than that, people are people and again i am reiterating this, If you have NO OTHER options but to stay there. you will find a way. That is a guarantee. It could also depend on your age. If you are under 40 then i guess such social inadequecies would bother you more than if you were past that threshold.

In a way, I am in same position as your friend, but there are i am sure many differences. But i have made up my mind and there really is no going back, for me.


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Kouroush, Thank you for

by ariane on

Kouroush,

Thank you for your response. Thoughtfull! This blog is meant to express a personal social expereince and a give light to someone who is about to embark on the same path and needs to make a choice. It was not meant to be political, merely because I am politically blind and ignorant.

You are right, If I had to I would have sucked it in and coped. I am glad I didn't.

What I was trying to highlight was the social implications of modern Iranian society. A society that once prided itself on its uniques values and sense of sociality. Western society is a self proclaimed capitalist venture, it's upfront and brutal in many cases. Compettition is hard but you what's coming to you so you brace yourself. Iranian society is nowadays a hypocritical one. It seems you know what's coming at you, but only when it hits you in the face, that's when you realize what exactly it is.

The only way you can keep your head down in Iran is having a reliable and sufficient source of income and stack yourself up in a villa in Shomal. Even then you're not safe, because you need to deal with people on a different level. You haven't joined a monestary now have you?

If you go there and work and try to earn a living, there is no way you can do that.

What I'm trying to saymay not please many of people, but to my sadness it is the fact. The Problem with Iran, is the Iranian mentality and nothing else. The other factors are merely by products of this mentality.

 

 


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Dear ariane

by KouroshS on

I wish that this blog's content had not turned political just like others. But i guess that would be inevitable.

I don't know how old you are and exactly what field you are in, But what i guessing is that you really did not have the absolute reason to stay in iran, Meaning that you have always had a choice of coming back to the states. That makes a huge difference. That was the case with the majority of iranians who decided to come back even during shah's reign. even though there were some among them who chose to stay iran and never exercised their other option.

What i am trying to say is that If your back was against the wall and there was no choice of going back, You would have definitely found a way to stay and never even let such duplicitous and deceitful attitude that preevails in iran bother you. You would have found a way to cope. I have heard so many stories, along the lines of what you described But so what?  I am sure you have had your share of encountering, not exact same events, in US as well. It probably did not bother you so much because you had coped with your situation and were busy studying and working so you did not let it find a place in your psyche.

The same is true in iran. If you keep your head down and mind your own buisness, and don't care too much about having a super active social or political life, then what is there to complain?

 

 


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How did you get to this

by ariane on

How did you get to this from what I said?

If a nation can not make an independent choice for its own well being and prosperity, well, frankly, it deserves what it gets.

Killing and raping is awfull, but they didn't come along from Mars to kill and rape us. No American or any British or any non-Iranian, never raped or killed any Iranian in Iran. If any thing they gave people like you and me a place to live when our own coutry rejected us.

I am saying "az mast ke bar mast". The sooner we let go of this Imperialist stricken "Daei Jan Napoleon" mentality, the sooner we get an effective control of our nation and its destiny.

And if any foreign power has been manupolating us in the past or present, well job well done, because we let them.

From where I look at it, Iranians are either too busy, rubbing each other, or faking a life, or tearing each other a part any chance they get. That leaves little time for safeguard your own destiny. The vaccuum that produces always gets filled by a foreign intervention who is smart enough to look after its own interest.

I think I made it plain and simple and logical.


amirkabear4u

How can you

by amirkabear4u on

How can you say it ariane!! 

I am very very surprised by your comments.

Are you saying if people get attached, killed or raped is their own fualt???

Think it over.

For over 100 years this poor nation did not have a choice to decide in Iran's politics. 

Fairness and Equality in Justice


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Dear Amir Kabear, The

by ariane on

Dear Amir Kabear,

The mentality of a nation as a whole plus the contribution of its members as individuals determine if it's a super power or not or whether it can hold its destiny in its own hands.

The easiest choice is always to blame your misfortunes on some superior power which you have no control over. Again part of the collective and individual mentality of a nation.

 If we have been manupolated by super powers, well may be we deserved it, because we let them.


amirkabear4u

Even though

by amirkabear4u on

you feel sad but you are not the only one who gone through this.

You mentioned ethics and honesty, today's Iran is the result of super powers planning. They were not honest.

The bad news is that a lot more is going on and no one knows about it.

Fairness and Equality in Justice


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Dear Anahid, Thanks for

by ariane on

Dear Anahid,

Thanks for that comment! Very true!

I hardly know of any generation such as mine, ours, that had its values and loyalties challenged.  There were just so much drama and scenarios that each were enough for a single generations. We had revulotion, war, political turmoil, you name it.

I equally have struggled with these circumstances as any of my contemperary compatriots. As I mentioned I don't regret my choice, it was what the Universityof Life intended for me and I'm at peace with that (hasn't always been like this though).

Demise of my country however is very disturbing to me. Specialyl when I can't do anything about it. The idealist, philantropist in me wishes to see these problems recitified in near future. So help us God.

 


Anahid Hojjati

Dear Ariane, thanks for your clarification

by Anahid Hojjati on

 

Ariane jan, thanks for explaining more.  As you noted, education is very important.  Also about your move back home, in my generation, this happened with thousands of young people.  Many were outside Iran when 22 Bahman happened and thousands came back to serve the country.  Out of these, many were killed, put in jail, not allowed to study in university, etc. 

Dear Ariane, one problem with making perfect choices is that what looks perfect at a certain time might prove to be not only imperfect but downright a bad choice.  There are principles one can follow to make better choices such as being true to oneself.  However, as decisions relate to staying in Iran or not and many other decisions regarding Iran, I am afraid many of us will not be able to make perfect decisions.  One reason is extreme volatility of Iran.  Any way, this comment is becoming too long but thanks for your important blog.


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Anahid

by ariane on

Dear Anahid,

 

Thanks for reading my blog!

What I mean by that is a very broad subject.

Generally speaking, Iranian society used to be a value based one. Now those values are shifted. What is universally known as a positive value, is taken as anti value in current iranian society. In other case "Fazilat" has become "razilat" and vice versa.

It takes at least two generation, means mine and the generation after me has already been exposed to a hypocritical upbringing, hence the attitudes one witnesses in the Iranian socities these days.

If there is a substantial changes in the education system and family upbrinigin we might still be able to save the current generation.

 

 

 


Anahid Hojjati

Dear Ariane, thanks for your thoughtful blog

by Anahid Hojjati on

 

Dear Ariane, you bring up good points in your blog.  Can you expand on what you mean where you write:"...the social implications of modern Iran are much more serious than we all tend to think. It will bring the country to a verge of social collapse sooner rather than later. If the suitable action is taken today, it will take at least two generations to make amends. "?