Lost

Sometimes I just feel so powerless and I just want to cry.

Sometimes I am wondering who are really the good ones and who are the bad ones.

Sometimes I wonder what can I actually do.

Sometimes I wonder who can I actually trust.

Sometimes I am wondering what is going on behind the curtains?

Can we really do anything?

Why am I the one in the CNG and not the kid who is selling me the ballones?

When I look the child into her or his eyes I don’t know what I see… I don’t know what this child has been through or will go through. I don’t know how I can make any difference to this child or if it will even need my help to change his or her life. I feel so sad. I can give him 10 taka or not without it really making a great difference. I don’t know if he or she will even benefit from the money that I give him or her. Or will some Godfather take it all?

When I meet with my friend, I don’t know if he really is my friend. I don’t know what are his motives and what does he want and expect from me. Does he really just enjoy my company because I am exactly the person who I am. Or is he hoping that I will help him living a different life in the future. Is he just my friend because I am the foreigner who can lead to certain benefits or prestige among his friend?

When my friend tells me who to watch out for, when he tells me who will try to take advantage me -How do I know he’s not the one who I should watch out for, the one who would try and take advantage of me?

I sincerely wish that the world would be the good place that I like to think it is, that the people are as good as I think they are. I hate feeling that maybe I’m too naïve when I at the same time feel that because I believe that the people are good, they will be good.

Sometimes I just want to give up.

Why do I have to care? When the people I care about do not understand that I care about them and want them the best. Why should I try when people will laugh at my attempts and idealism? Why should I care when the people don’t care about each other?

But I just can’t give up…

I feel it is part of me. It is my life and it is why I am here on this earth. I can’t not care.  It is not a matter of the big changes but a about the small actions –the small kindness. The child I see outside the CNG begging me for money is my brother or sister. I cannot say no to my brother or sister if he or she is starving.

When I am giving the child a hug, when he or she is falling asleep in my arms –just as miserable as he or she is –I feel that all the people are good. All people were once this child. And I feel I love her or him because this child it is my brother or sister.

But as they are all my sisters and brothers and when I feel the love and I feel they are all good people I feel even more sad to see them living such tough lives. But when all comes to all, it is not about inventing a poverty eliminating machine but to do what we do with love to each other and all our brothers and sisters.

Maybe studying economics has been the greatest mistake in my life. Fooling myself to think that a tool which people use to exploit each other could as a matter of fact be used for the good cause.  Maybe I wasted 6 years of life, so many tears and frustrations… for no reason at all… just to realize that no matter what I do it will not be the solution to the people’s misery.

I don’t know what to believe and no theory can explain me the reality. The reality depends on which side you believe in and what you are looking at. There is not one answer and I cannot clearly promote one approach. I cannot promise people anything. Anything anybody else is doing could be different from what I think and expect.

No matter what we do it is either not enough, it is not done well enough or it is not done right.

So what to do with my life then?

I feel I am not fitting into the life that I am living… I am not an economist who has all the answers. I cannot do career if I don’t believe in what I am doing. I don’t know what the strategy is, I don’t know what needs to be done…

Economics is not what is important.

The children are important. Education is important. Human and women’s rights are important.

Maybe I have given up on trying to strike the balance… but I am getting lost and I find no one to guide me to get back on track.

(written the 1st of December 2010)