Ruminations on what life would have been

On the trip down from Saigon to Bac Lieu I often wonder what life would have been like for me had I stayed in Vietnam. What kind of life would I have had in Vietnam? What would my job be? At first the idea brought only dread and fear that I would have been unhappy had I grown up in Vietnam since that would mean giving up a lot of the pleasures and comforts that I have gotten so used to. Does my happiness then depend on the materialistic things that I have accumulated? I doubt that it does and truly it is a scary notion to think that materialism singularly holds the key to happiness. My possessions only serve to make my life more convenient and easier but it is impossible to demand happiness from objects. If materialism is the cause of people’s happiness then surely people without those things cannot attain it and people who lived in the past could not have gotten it which sounds truly absurd. 

Maybe I was also afraid because I do not know Vietnam which is still roughly a foreign country to me. I know very little about the history, the people, and the culture. But apparently people from many other countries admire the will and courage of the Vietnamese people who fought during the war and triumph. There is much to be said about that and some people have attributed the qualities of devotion to family and country as a winning property. But who knows? I remember a man from India telling me how much he admire Vietnam for they were able to fight for their freedom, but I also told him how India had the wise Gandhi who somehow united hundreds of millions of Hindus under one banner to fight for their freedom without engaging in an actual war, maybe that was a nobler battle. 

And perhaps it’s not fair to ask myself to somehow adjust and adapt to a new place especially when I have lived most of my life somewhere else. That’s why I think change and adaptation must have been extremely difficult for my uncle and his wife even immigrating to a rich country like the US. Even now my happiness rests solely on the shoulders of my high school teacher who gave me a lot of direction in life. Without him I would have been lost and living in America or Vietnam would not have made much of a difference. From the figure of Socrates, I found some consolation and clear perspective as to how I want to live this life and thus reassured myself that happiness cannot be determined solely by the country in which a person lives but rests entirely on what the ancient Greeks have said many ages ago to “Know thyself.” Call me a fool but I am always mesmerized by the wisdom of Socrates who believes that wealth does not bring happiness but only goodness brings wealth and every other blessings. 

Having been in both cultures, I find it rather amusing but understandable at the same time that many Vietnamese people like the idea of marrying their children off to Vietnamese-Americans thinking that happiness can somehow be bought if they go off to America--as if America has the magic recipe to create happiness. But having grown up poor in America, I am weary of such logic. It is hard for Vietnamese people to realize how hard it is to live in America. Sure poor Americans don’t starve like the poor people in Vietnam, but it still should not justify the fact that Americans are somehow “better off or happier” than other people in third world countries. Given the state of our current economy, I really don’t think that we are. And as far as my happiness is concern, I am glad that I am in the position that I am in. Since I do not have a family nor children to look after, I'm not too concerned about money as long as I get to travel over the summer. While there is limited pleasures of being a substitute teacher, one of the perks is that I have a lot freedom to pursue my passion for Sanskrit and someday become a translator and to share my knowledge with other people. I owe all of this to my high school teacher and many other people who have helped me find my path ever since he aroused in me the love for philosophy and charmed me completely with the figure of Socrates. Furthermore, all of these materialistic worries are quickly dissolved when I hear the verse of the Gita in the back of my mind which whispers softly to me that “There is no wisdom in a person whose mind is untamed and a person whose mental state is all over the place, meditation is not possible. And without meditation there can be no peace, and without peace how then can there be happiness?”