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Family or career?

I have reached an age where I see all of my friends working very hard, working overtime, spending lots of hours in front of the computer and complaining about being tired and needing a break.

Although they work very hard they still complain they still have things to get done, that they haven’t finished the work and have to start over again the next day. Because they work so hard they have little spare time and little time to spend with their family and friends.

There is an idea circulating among the youth that you should start a family after accumulating everything you need, after you are professionally fulfilled. That means having a well paid job, a house and a car and only afterwards you may start thinking about starting a family.

This unofficial opinion makes many people sacrifice themselves by working, strive for job promotions, go from one company to another in pursuit of bigger salary, look up to 30 year old managers who own a car, a laptop and a phone and travel for work all around the world, but who don’t even have the time to stop at home.

Obviously those who reach fulfillment and have everything they want before the age of 30 are few and who can afterwards seek to start a family, while most of them remain at an average standard of living due to which they live more or less hand-to-mouth.

Waht do you do if you reach 30 and you have no house, no car, not even a great salary and yet you have worked pretty hard? Most of the friends your age have settled down, you too must do something. Who can you marry? The girls (or boys) you used to meet through various friends a few years ago have vanished, your group of friends is getting smaller, the chances to meet someone are becoming smaller. You ran after two hares and caught neither, you wanted to get rich first and get married then, but not only you didn’t get rich, but you also wasted the proper time for marriage.

There is a right time for everything in life, everything must be done at its own right time. To rejoice together with your friends and fall in love when you are young, to get married when you are still childlike. To start a family when you can adjust to them and they can adjust to you, when you have the strength to forgive them and they have the strength to understand you.

Get married young and rejoice together fighting for fulfillment. Search for happiness together, overcome obstacles together, taste everything life offers together. And even if you reach 30 without having too many possessions, still you will have each other, still you will (perhaps) have the little one. And what is the loss of not having lots of money if the two of you get along so well, what is the loss of not having fortunes if you have the little one, the most prized possession.

What is more valuable than love? What is more beautiful than a child?

(Claudiu Balan)

Translated by Claudia