A matter of choice
At the centre of life should be pursuing one's dreams, writes Laila Omar Hassan
In our society, people are more often that not perceived and judged according to what they do for a living. "He's a lawyer! He's an engineer!" then he must be respectable. I beg to differ and challenge this reduction. Personally, I think that there is a lot more to an individual than what they do for a living and it seems unfair to assume otherwise. I believe a person should be judged on how well they do their job and not on the job itself. To me, a person is more respectable if he has passion than if he has a degree. Don't get me wrong, this is not to say education is not important; quite the contrary, education is the tool for shaping your future. However, one should study what one loves and not what one is told to love.
In Egypt, a person working in the movie business is either a university dropout or a jobless person. People conceive the movie industry as taboo. I have a friend who wants to be a director. He studies political science at the American University in Cairo (AUC) as well as directing at the Cinema Institute. He attends classes at both schools, writes political papers, enters debates, shoots films and writes scripts. As diverse as the two majors are, he is good at both of them. He works very hard and is very passionate about his dreams. I don't think such a person should be viewed as a dropout if he chooses cinema over politics, but rather as a hard worker with a dream.
Speaking about ambitions and dreams, I find a very disappointing phenomena rising these days among university students. As strange as it may be, while boys choose which university to attend according to their job preference, girls tend to choose universities according to their potential husbands' preferences.
I know people who go to AUC and others who go to Cairo University. They seem to have the same future goals in mind: getting married and having kids. This is not a bad dream, but it should not be our ultimate goal. I sit with girls whose biggest fear in life is not getting married. I don't mean to be judgmental or to put myself on a higher pedestal, but I think that it is sad with all the gender equality that the world has worked so hard to achieve that we are still ready to take a backseat in our lives.
My biggest fear in life is not proving my existence, not achieving all I can achieve. I am not saying that I do not want to get married. I am merely saying that there are more things in life than this. When you hear me say this, you might think that I am an "A" student whose goal is to conquer the world. However, I know of many "A" student girls who will end up staying at home because they just want an easy life. I am not an "A" student, nor am I low scorer; I am simply a girl with a goal in life: my goal is to make the best of what life offers me.
In summary, my point is: Go after what you want, work hard on it, because it is only through pursuing your dream that you become respectable, successful and most importantly happy!
Laila Omar Hassan is a Business Administration senior at the American University in Cairo and senior in law at Cairo Law School.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/893/sc072.htm