📘🕊✨📘🕊✨📘🕊✨📘🕊✨📘🕊✨📘🕊✨📘🕊✨
Yixin
A rustic village fallen behind, my parents exhausted from their work, a life in financial straits … these gloomy memories were branded on to my young mind, they were my first impression of “fate.” After I started attending school, the first time I heard my teacher say that “You control your fate in your own hands,” I kept these words firmly in my mind. I believed that although I could not change the fact that I was born into poverty, I could still change my own fate through hard work. As a result, I exerted my full strength to wrestle with my “fate,” and gain a slice of heaven to call my own.
A Setback in My Studies
Just like generation after generation of countless students, my determination to study and get into college was the first step in changing my fate. To this end, I studied hard. When in class I listened attentively, when outside of class while other students were all out playing, I was still studying, often immersed in my books deep into the night. Due to my rigorous studying, my grades were always among the best. Every time that my teachers or classmates would cast gazes of admiration upon me it would reinforce my conviction that “I need to rely on my own two hands to carve out a place in the world for myself.” But the ways of the world are unpredictable. As I was striving for these beautiful ideals, my father suddenly fell ill. After being examined we found that he had cirrhosis, and that it had already progressed into the middle stages. My father grew swollen all over his body due to the illness, and not only was he not able to work, he also had to spend a lot of money on doctor visits. For a period of time all house work, as well as farm work on over 3 acres of land, fell on to my mother, and at the same time my mother also came down with a serious gynecological disease. One day my father told me, with a face laden with grief: “Daughter, right now our entire family is relying on just your mother for support. Her burden is very heavy. It costs a lot of money to send four kids to school to study for a year. We really don’t have any way to provide all of you with schooling. You are the oldest, so you should consider your brothers and sisters. Why don’t you stop going to school so that we can set aside this opportunity for your brothers and sisters?” After listening to my father’s words, I felt an overwhelming pain in my heart: I had always hoped to study hard and become an outstanding person, but if I acquiesced to my father’s wish that I give up on my studies, then wouldn’t all of my prospects and hopes just all of a sudden completely vanish?! My eyes were full of teardrops, and I felt a fit of sadness in my heart. I knew that my father had thought it over for a long time before saying these words, and looking at my sick mother, I could not bear to lay such a heavy burden down upon her. Confronted with my family’s impoverished financial situation, I had no choice but to compromise with the current situation and fight back the tears as I acquiesced to my father’s wishes.
Without having finished junior high school, I was young but I was full of ambition. Although I wasn’t able to finish my studies, I quickly set my sights on getting a temporary job to make money. I believed that through hard work I could still absolutely change my fate. Before too long, through a relative’s introduction, I went to the city to work at a textile factory. In order to make more money I worked as hard as I could. Where other people watched after two machines I watched after four, and when others took breaks I would go on working. The boss saw that I was reliable and capable, and within five months of working he increased my wages to as much as what workers who had been there for a long time working. My workmates all cast looks of envy upon me.
