After failing the postgraduate entrance examination, I ran away from home again and again

"Then you can't always let her will, why don't you go to work after graduation?"

A word from the relatives suddenly stopped the noise in the banquet, making me sitting beside my mother almost lost my courtesy for a while.

This world is very strange. When people discuss something, they always like to use narrow results to push back the weak reasons, but they forget that the ancestors said that the taboo of commenting is the unknown and the whole picture.

Two years ago, when I was in my senior year, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic pushed my future plans to a stable level in an instant, so I started my home life of taking online classes and preparing for postgraduate entrance exams.

At that time, the subject content of the Renmin University of China I wanted to take the test had not been changed to a comprehensive one, and I only had seven or eight professional reference books, so the stupid bird flew first. From February to December, 10 months was extraordinarily long for me. adequate.

Until the afternoon of July 31, 2020, I suddenly swiped the news about the change of the National People's Congress examination syllabus on Weibo.

For literature candidates, the three words "big comprehensive" are not only a dozen reference textbooks that have suddenly increased, but also countless literary works from ancient and modern China and foreign countries and the ever-changing methods of examination questions.

But in the end, I still did not change my choice, but persisted with the idea of ​​"what if no one else dared to apply", and even on the day of leaving the examination room, I still had an eight-point confidence.

However, the impermanence of the world is that even if there is only a 0.1% miscalculation, it may be defeated, not to mention that I am not at the right time.

I still remember the day when the results came out, the super talk on the Weibo postgraduate entrance examination for the National People's Congress went viral in an instant. Everyone was questioning the scores, and they were all angry about the pressure, but in the end, the result we waited for was still that 0 people passed the line. It's a phrase that is better than lacking.

Later, I heard from the schoolmates that in that year, all the final admissions of the literature major of the National People's Congress were all candidates for transfer.

Therefore, the graduation ceremony in June was not so much a goodbye with regrets, but a signal that reminded me that I finally got to the point where I could fall down.

So, in that parting, I saw that everyone walked forward without looking back, or chose World War II, or within the system, or the pressure of "996".

Only me, smashed the wine glass, turned back, and chose to run away.

It was probably from that moment that I finally began to understand what Teacher Miao said in the Sinology class in my junior year - in fact, sometimes "doing nothing" is more difficult than "doing it", because we are used to it. Enterprising.

In the month I just graduated, I also actively submitted my resume, so positive that I couldn’t tell whether it was because the emotion of failing the postgraduate entrance examination had been cut off by a quick knife, or if I really fell in love with the job all of a sudden.

At that time, my mother often said: "Otherwise, take the exam for another year. You can see that you actually did well in all three subjects, but only one was a little unsatisfactory. Let's report a little lower this time, and we will definitely pass."

I refused, and even mocked with a radical mood: "You just want me to have a master's degree."

So, I delivered my resume retaliatory, and every time I received an interview notice, I would silently say to myself, "Look, you can still do without a master's degree."

But I soon discovered that I, who seemed to be enjoying it, did not have the courage to make a choice.

I said to the HR of the 4A public relations company, "I'm sorry, I recently received a written test notice from China Daily", and I said to the editorial offer from Shanghai, "I'll think about it again."

I would actually refuse the most desirable city and the most suitable job, which made me finally realize that, rather than proving my ability, I need to put away my cover now and face up to myself under the influence of the emotions of failure, The escape of "making a choice".

Therefore, when I saw the announcement of the recruitment of volunteers released by the WeChat public account "Shanyi International Women's Film Festival" (hereinafter referred to as "Shanyi"), I submitted my resume without hesitation, which was both desperate and resigned. .

In short, I told myself, this time I leave the choice to fate.

If you are selected, you will go to the bigger world to be yourself. If you are not selected, you will listen to your parents' arrangement and find a stable job near your home. After all, human arms can't twist God's thighs.

When I received the call for the re-examination, it was the end of summer, and at the last second before hanging up, the interviewer said to me, "It's almost certain that I have been selected. Let's wait for the official announcement."

I was very excited, on the one hand to be selected, and on the other hand to be myself, but to my surprise, a few days later, I received a letter starting with "Sorry" in the mailbox.

"I, Yamaichi lost the election," I said to my parents who were sitting on the sofa watching TV as I walked out of the bedroom.

I was probably crying softly and embarrassed, all I remember was that something seemed to be blocking my chest, making me gasp, and my lips were still shaking.

Later, my father sat with me in the dark night until the early hours of the morning, but in the end I could only sigh and say, "Wash your face before going to bed."

Before going to sleep, I took a last look at my phone, and it happened that "Shan Yi" had just posted the shortlist. I clicked in with the last hope, and found that my name was listed.

So, I quickly sat up from the bed and opened the mailbox. At that moment, a new email read: "Shanyi has you, become Shanyi." So, I was selected, after a night of oolong.

On the way to Chengdu, I never thought about the cancellation of the film festival. Even when the organizer solemnly called the volunteers together, I was still immersed in the joy of being selected.

So, when one person's oolong turned into a collective oolong, I sat in that dimly lit screening room until the crowd thinned, and finally got the courage to walk up to the organizer's staff and tell her my story .

I said, "Thank you, Yamaichi, for helping me make a choice. Even if the film festival didn't go smoothly, it at least helped a girl like me make a decision."

Later, when I returned to Shijiazhuang from Chengdu, I clicked on the resume delivery window of the local newspaper in Shijiazhuang, and I was as calm as an adult who had seen through reality and ideals.

However, to everyone's surprise, on October 19, 2021, on the day when I should have been sitting in front of the newspaper HR to discuss salary, I bumped onto the train to Tibet all the way.

The train came from Shanghai. Halfway through the trip, there was a new crown pneumonia outbreak in Shanghai, so I don’t know if I can still go to Tibet.

But fortunately, I arrived smoothly, and no potential infected person was found on the train.

I still remember that on the night we arrived, Lhasa Station was out of power and it was dark. Everyone could only do nucleic acid tests at the exit by the light of their mobile phones.

When you are in that kind of scene, you will feel that it is very like fate. We can only see the scenery under our feet and the farthest scenery, but we don’t know anything about the boundless undercurrent.

I spent a total of two months in Lhasa as a volunteer in the inn, so every day, except for some cleaning tasks in the morning, the rest of the time is free and flexible, enough for me to go to a larger group of people to find answers.

During that time, I frequently intruded into the lives of local people, into the stories of strangers, imagining myself as a writer who collected styles, and wrote down what touched me.

In my writing, there are independent photographers who dropped out of high school but gambled, naked quitters who lost their money due to delays in their trips due to their online companionship, expatriate reporters in Lhasa who love to watch football games, and some people who took a wooden Boxes wandering around, etc.

In the eyes of many outsiders, everyone will think that this is a curiosity, but all these encounters and conversations, for me, are a self-opening, I want to draw some strength from these different living methods to support me Get rid of the obsession of "failure in postgraduate entrance examination".

In other words, I probably just want to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears. Life is broad and there are thousands of people.

In the past two months, I shared my knowledge and thoughts on a certain social platform with the ID of "Reverse Roll Girl Atui", and the number of fans increased from 304 at the time of departure to nearly 10,000.

At that time, a fan in the backstage left a message for me, she said, "Sister, I don't think you are the 'reverse-roll girl Atui', you just don't want to roll in the areas you don't like, and in the things you are good at and like, you A lot of people have been killed."

Therefore, when the operator of a cultural and creative brand in Tibet found me, in that private conversation, I frankly admitted for the first time that I had changed my view on the word "volume".

"At first I came to Lhasa with a flat mentality, I felt tired and didn't want to roll, but then there was one thing that completely changed my mind.

In the hostel I stayed in, there were many people without jobs. When they had money, they would eat, sleep, and play games in their room. When they had no money, they would take takeout orders. They were very free, but they did not arouse my envy.

I've always told myself to respect everyone's choices, so in the same way, I don't neglect to respect myself.

That's what my gut said to me at that moment - run away? You are not one to accept that you stop. "

"Then what do you think is your definition of reverse roll now?" The person sitting across from me interviewing me continued to ask.

"Let's put it this way, I gradually realized that involution and devolution are not opposites, and the process of devolution is more like rejecting involution.

Let me tell you a story, I asked an old man outside the Potala Palace what is piety, and he thought I was asking about the future.

Just tell me that he used to be the monitor when he was studying, and he was always the first in the test, but there are many things in the world that are unclear. When he was studying, he was the first, but in society he almost became the last. He even recited "Sending Dongyang Horse's Life" to me casually.

Later, after thinking about it carefully, I came up with an answer, that is - no one will always be the first, there will always be gaps, and there will always be ups and downs. It is a kind of piety to be able to accept one's own life at all times.

And the future is to always go forward religiously on the path you choose.

This inconspicuous story is also my first explosive article on that social platform, with nearly 20,000 likes. "

Later, I left Lhasa on a snowy day, December 26, the day before my father's birthday. Later, three months later, I set foot on the train bound for Ningxiang, Hunan.

In the past 3 months before I went to Hunan, I was mostly at home, updating the unfinished Tibetan stories as an 18th-tier blogger. I was also anxious about the increasingly exhausted materials and inspirations every day. .

This is an era of self-media, everyone seems to have a chance to pick up the microphone, but the stage is so big that if your voice is not good enough and your performance is not positive enough, you will lose most of the spotlight.

So, when I tried to become a full-time blogger, this invisible scramble for attention and tension numbed my senses, making me, who used to boast a strong desire to express, gradually become reticent.

So, in those nights when I lost sleep over the data, I often thought of my mother asking me to sign up for the military civil service, often thinking of salary and a stable life.

I even started fantasizing about having a moderately paid job, the comfort of living next to my parents and the beauty of developing a side business.

However, instead of waiting for the scheduled exam, I waited for the announcements that the exams were being postponed due to the epidemic.

When many peers ended the first semester of graduate school, when many friends walked out of the examination room for the second test, when many classmates began to crowd into the spring tide for the first time.

Half a year after graduation, I have not yet entered the workplace, and my future life is uncertain.

It can be said that I finally lost the burden of past failures in the journey of meeting countless people, but in a blink of an eye, I was lost in the illusion of "it seems that I can become a blogger".

However, at that time, I didn't realize that the way to get a drowning person to actively abandon the dead wood is often to let him grab another straw, but the straw can't save the person, on the contrary, it often breaks down at a certain moment. all.

Therefore, I was caught in the passion of freelance work, and it was not until Liangshui slapped my face that I was shocked to realize that I was a member of the authorities and deceived myself.

I was attending a wedding banquet in a hotel in my home county that day. My mother sat on my right, and on my left was a relative I hadn’t seen for a long time.

Before the banquet, my mother greeted them through me, and they talked about me from time to time.

"Is the child looking for a job after graduation? What are you doing?"

The mother's expression changed slightly, and she smiled again and said, "I haven't gone to work yet. She has applied for a civilian post in the military and is waiting for the exam."

I followed the words and said in a loud voice, "I don't plan to go to work at the moment. I'm working on self-media. After I gain experience, I may go to study for a postgraduate in communication."

The relatives responded symbolically, and then began to instruct the mother, saying that she should not come with the child, the child did not understand, and the adult must not understand.

Later, when I got home, I had a big fight with my mother, accusing her of looking down on the self-media I did, and being ashamed to mention it in front of outsiders.

My mother didn't show weakness, and asked me with a sneer: "We-media? Can you tell me what we-media is? How much money do you make from it? Can you rely on it for food? Take a step back, you last stable. Ban, can't we media do it?"

The mother and daughter parted unhappily.

When my father found me, he only said one sentence: "No one looks down on you. As a self-media, you have to look down on yourself."

After listening to it, I shuddered for a while, and felt extremely frightened, because I dared not admit that I had no confidence to rely on self-media to support myself, and I dared not admit that the person who looked down on me the most was actually myself.

I tried to prove my ability with unfamiliar affirmations from all directions, trying to make up my weight with likes and followers, but I was wrong, because unfamiliar affirmations are always the easiest to get.

Just like what my mother used to say, I don't know the people on the roadside, I care what they do, I say what they do, I can't do it.

But the hardest thing to get is the affirmation of yourself, that you know who you are, how capable you are, and what you will do in the future.

I arrived in Ningxiang, Hunan before the "March 8th" Women's Day. I was still working as a volunteer in an intangible cultural heritage studio.

Before leaving, I cried for two days and two nights, and even begged my mother with swollen walnut eyes to tell me: "What am I doing is right, is the path I choose right?"

Mother didn't answer. When I got on the train, I said, "This is the last time. I will come back to take the career test in a month. Trust me, bye."

When I was in Ningxiang, I followed the proprietress to dye cloth in the mountains, broadcast live broadcasts in the store, and participated in research and study in the intangible cultural heritage exhibition hall.

I always remember what her senior brother said to me when he talked about batik in Guizhou, he said: "Culture has no borders, but people do.

Everyone chooses a different position, and I chose to stand with the mother-in-law who dyed canvas in Guizhou.

The only thing I want to accomplish in my life is to protect the batik culture of Miao Village. "

There are two words in junior high school history textbooks, one is called "a hundred flowers bloom" and the other is called "a hundred schools of thought contend".

At that time, I thought everyone should be like this, spreading everywhere, blooming everywhere.

But after more than 20 years in my life, I suddenly discovered that perhaps for the era and the country, what is needed is a hundred flowers blooming, and when it falls on everyone's head, you only need to be your own one.

So, I did not stay in the end, but returned to my hometown in accordance with the agreement with my parents.

At the dinner table before leaving, I said to the proprietress: "I have now understood a truth, each person has his own strengths and responsibilities.

If the words I wrote about the intangible cultural heritage skills these days can be seen and understood by more people, I will be satisfied. I am not capable of taking the responsibility of inheriting it, and what I am better at may be just dissemination. "

The last trip made me think a lot.

I began to understand that stability is the fertile ground for developing a person's more possibilities. I know that every adult lives on the scale of ideals and responsibilities. I know that everyone's life is not complete. Just like the old saying goes, "The full moon is a loss. When the water is full, it overflows.”

On April 6, 2022, I completely ended my wandering life and completely extinguished the fantasy of being a full-time blogger.

He began to prepare for the exam with both hands, one is a local career editor and a long-term military civilian, and the other is a volunteer Chinese teacher sent by the country.

But the accident came much faster than the exam. On the third day after returning home, the boss of a company that his father cooperated with ran away and took away the payment he had just called the day before.

In an instant, the number of members in the rights protection WeChat group exceeded 100, and the amount of statistics has climbed all the way to 100 million yuan.

The continuous phone calls, the audible sighs, and the silence and anxiety of my father gradually made me realize that in this world, no one can take care of me forever. .

Therefore, after I participated in the assessment of the National Chinese Teacher Volunteer Program, I no longer waited foolishly for the postponed career and clerical examinations, but opened the recruitment software and began to find a way out and find a way to share the pressure for the family.

I originally had no hope, so at noon half a month after the end of the assessment, the teacher from the International Office pulled me into the reserve group chat and said "Congratulations on being selected", I was still a little dazed.

It turned out that this trance was justified, because two hours after I shared this joy with my family, I got a call from my teacher saying that I didn't see my name on the official list and asked me to quit. .

"It's alright, I didn't want you to go in the first place. How can China be safe outside, and I haven't seen you for so long." My father comforted me.

"That's right, the epidemic is so serious now, I won't go if I don't go, and prepare well for the exams that follow." The mother replied.

I nodded, instead of crying bitterly because of rejection like last September, I relieved myself and went to sleep. This one is over, and I will work hard on the next one.

But fortunately, the unintentionally inserted willow has become a shade, but there is an additional link called "must be hard on one's will first".

In the afternoon, the teacher from the International Office called again to say that another official document had been sent and asked me to join the group again.

So, at this point, 10 months after graduating, I finally ushered in the autumn that belongs to me, and I embarked on the road of dissemination of what my heart desires.

But if you think about it carefully, it is not unprepared. The four years of hard work in language learning in college, the fascination with linguistics during the postgraduate entrance examination, and the dream that I longed for when I entered the school five years ago have finally come true.

Even though I was affected by the global epidemic and shocked by the news of the Confucius Institute air raid, I finally became a Chinese teacher who went overseas and an envoy who promoted the non-governmental exchanges between China and Thailand.

Looking back at this moment, along the way, I have struggled, escaped, and encountered smooth encounters. As I said when I set off, if there is really no example in this world, then I will be an example.

But I didn't fully do what I said. I was no longer as young and frivolous as I was at the beginning, shouting to every young man standing at the fork in life: "Be yourself, and run away like me."

Instead tell them:

"The most important truth in this world is 'the right time and place are right for people'. What he has done, you may not succeed, but it is not necessarily the difference between you, but because of various factors that are uncontrollable."

Probably as my mother once told me:

"The most important opportunities in a person's life are not obtained by fighting for them alone. They are often accompanied by waiting. Everything pays attention to the right time and place. Keep your faith and wait for the wind."