You are enough

I have travelled around the world and seen so many amazing things as well as so many things that you’d be shocked to know but I won’t travel to certain countries on my own. Today I watched a video of a girl who was not even in her third day in India and wanted to leave because of the fear she felt and the things she saw. India is still a patriarchal country where a minority of women have only recently started becoming bus and taxi drivers due to the rising violence and rape against women in India. The girl whose video I watched states that she was intimidated as a gang of taxi drivers mainly men kept surrounding her and forcing her to take their taxis. Because she was so intimidated by it all and was about to breakdown she started walking. One taxi driver followed her with his car and intuition told her to get in. It was fine until he started asking her a lot of personal questions. The typical one was which I am so familiar with men in our culture asking is this question and think it’s okay to ask this question without even knowing a person is “Do you have a boyfriend?” When I talk to Indian men randomly if they’re serving at the counter or happened to talk to them because I am generally nice, within five minutes I get this question. If your answer was “No” or they suspect you are lying they will continue asking personal questions almost as if they’re insisting on you giving them a sign. Don’t get me wrong, not all Indian men are like this and by the way, the girl I talk about at the beginning of this article, in the end, went to see her dad in Nepal instead of going the remaining twenty-nine days solo.

I am a woman who has lived in five countries in total, had over forty jobs and moved to a new house over forty times. The main reason for this was immigration while other reasons were due to workplace bullying and work contracts that looked good on paper but not in reality. To this day I have lost over two hundred and fifty thousand euros in four first world countries, this includes pound value and excludes visa fees, application fees and lawyer fees. Had over twenty offers to marry some arranged and some for papers because not one country offered me a reasonable solution to residency. After coming from apartheid South Africa at first, I wasn’t too white to have the best then we had no money to send me to university and I got sent to college. Then I find I am not black enough for the system and then when I graduate and just about try to land my first job I’m dealing with affirmative action. After one year I get a job in a country where crime, violence and rapes are in an all-time high and the final straw; held at gunpoint while being robbed at my job. All this at just twenty years of age.

Now what I must tell you is really important. Pay attention, this is coming from a woman with forty years, forty lives lived so far (well that’s how I feel right now) and I feel I’ve had a lucky escape twice with regards to my own life. We should get this before we start teaching our kids this. What we have to give is already enough, it’s already inside of us. If we don’t feel fulfilled, we can’t give, and we can’t feel enough. Keep learning and keep moving forward. Don’t let your dreams die. Once you get the concept that you are enough watch your children. Children are constantly watching, playing and reading things like Barbie and Ken, Princess movies or gender-based programmes. From the time they’re young, kids are looking to be like someone else. Have your kids have good role models if that’s the case but understand that it ultimately comes down to them looking for the princess in themselves, the superheroes in themselves and that they are the ones like no other because the world will need that, exactly that; the value they themselves are the most qualified to give, the leader they’re best being.

What does the first paragraph of this article have to do with this topic? Foreigners are struggling back home. So many want out so badly at any cost. One can afford a pair of good trainers which some celebrity in Britain or the United States has worn which has become famous. With the standard of living in countries without a great difference in currencies, people get paid according to their standard of life hence people can afford the brand while in third world countries people get paid according to their standard of life. Just because a pair of trainers has become famous on an American TV series, in Hollywood everyone wants that brand including those in Bollywood. People can’t afford this if they live a standard life with a standard wage. They fail to see that the brand doesn’t state your value. You are the brand you are the value. It’s you who make that brand successful. People are looking outside of them for their value and not inside of them.

After being a foreigner living in all these countries taking a lot of rubbish in the first thirteen years, I finally get the concept of living on my terms, holding my value and power as the most expensive price. My time and presence are what others should value with all this knowledge and experience I’ve gained. That two hundred and fifty thousand euros actually converted me into a woman with a billion-pound experience that no one on this earth can buy. I can’t be bought. That freedom comes from experience even more expensive than a passport to a country which has the best terms for its people. Why? Because you have earned something so valuable that no one can take from you, buy from you or own. No paper, no person, no company can tell you your worth but you. That is why you are enough and everything you’ve learnt and are still learning keep increasing your value, gifts and talents.

T. Dench Patel

Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by either purchasing one of my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.

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Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to reevaluate them.