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5+ Years Since Returning to Sri Lanka...

Now that 5+ years have passed since our return to Sri Lanka, I wanted to write this for a while.

We are now stable and basic materialistic things are well achieved, thanks to lots of running around. Semi-government school option didn't work, while we gave up the idea of public schools early. So Son is at a private school and we are largely happy about it. Teaching, research, & consultancies all have reasonable success. Initiated a start-up & learned a lot, despite not being commercially successful. I am lucky to establish many professional connections through quality work so that I can stand up on my own. Most importantly, we have a new member in family & she's distracting us from all daily chores while giving renewed hope.

While I said "we are still overwhelmed & lost" after 1 year, now things are far better. I'm still overwhelmed with work, partly due to red-tapes & inefficiencies in the system, as well as due to my inability to say No. Occasionally, we still get lost in trying to decide to stay or migrate. At times migration seems to be too much of a disruption and sabbatical is an appealing alternative. My only series complain today is about people, which I recently summarized as:

"There are those who inspire others to do great work & then there are those who suck other's energy so that they can drag others to their level... Irony is I encounter 2nd type of people more often."

While it took almost 5 years to realize that everyone has an agenda, the best piece of advice I got so far is:
"Stay away from those people, and don't give a dam about them."

Going forward, gaining control of my time and trying to achieve life deems are the next set of challenges to be conquered.

A couple of people seeing my previous 2 posts have told me that based on my experience, it looks scary to either return or stay here.  Today, I would advise one to return or stay here, if you are willing to spend a couple of hard & confusing years, as well as end result of being with your family or want your kids to grown in an eastern culture.

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