Someone who only knows me online (and whom I don’t know at all) shared a personal story with me with a remark, “Unlike you, my life consists of only sad stories”
“I’m sorry for what you have been through. I wish you a wonderful life ahead,” I responded.
But if I had an opportunity to say more, I’d say this:
I’m sorry you feel that way. You don’t know me and my life’s stories, but I’m glad that I reflect what the happy life looks like. However, in reality, every single person on earth has sad and happy moments. Life, I think, is neither about sad nor happy stories. It is a single tale that stretches across the breadth of time. Happy or sad depends on how we tell it and which part of it we choose to tell. More importantly, what happens within that tale isn’t simply given, a fate, or a mere luck. We’re not the sole author of it, but we play a central role in writing our own tale of life.
As for my own, I can summarise it in one phrase, “It is such an exquisite life.“
m, ottawa may 2022
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. And never stop to be really bothered by injustice–hey, a critical monkey can be really angry, too 
. No, never follow the “money” or the “safest” pathway. No, it’s not easy or smooth; sometimes you fail and/or people/institutions failed you, but speaking for myself and myself alone, I never and will never regret this choice. FYI, I am one of the lucky ones who survived academia and became a tenured professor several years ago by fully exercising my own freedom, doing research that I believed in. I hope to swing up-side-down while holding a banana when I am an emerita professor (if I ever become one someday) and grin satisfactorily when I RIP 
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). And in the meantime, collectively we need to work in a pursuit of justice and equality in the world, so someday when we tell our children and grandchildren “you can be anything you want to be” we are inches closer to telling the truth.