Good Things. Bad Things.
Posted: November 16, 2011 Filed under: My Wild Ambition Leave a comment »Once again I was surrounded by glitz and glamor, within the margins tuxedo-clad glasses-clinking powerful men. A few approvingly nodded to me. I am … to be sure, nowhere near the league of these gentlemen. Certainly nowhere near the pinnacle of my career and ambition. But from where I am, nestled between a grand piano and an grandiloquent wall of a posh hotel, I was afforded glimpse of my possible career peak.
Hours before, I was on national radio station, playing the keyboard for a certain pop star. Indeed, good things are happening lately. Such that it afforded me the confidence to believe that if I hang on to it for a little longer, I’d be on top. I am networking, increasing my visibility and slowly cementing the roots of my reputation.
Only, as the excitement weathered, I realized the tuxedo-clad glass-clinking men can never be powerful enough. Same goes to the national radio and the pop star, whose sphere of influence and popularity never extends beyond the border of this country. This is no New York, Hong Kong, or any “big city where dreams come true”. While all these can be interpreted as my growing elitism and disdain for all things local, I however believed that kind of discrimination is necessary in attaining global greatness.
Awards. I clinched two for my virgin musical work. I remembered that night in precise resolution. Stage lights beamed attention on me. I must have been too dazzled by my sudden new found pride. As it turns out in retrospect, this isn’t the Tony Awards or any top global industry accolades.
My conflicting thoughts knocked me off my trajectory. Suddenly I didn’t know what to do next: I should begin packing up skills, knowledge and expertise, set foot on the “big city where dreams come true”, start anew, climb to the top. But I should also stay because as they say, in the land of the blind, the one eye man is king and I might not have similar opportunities, more so when we talk about competitive landscape in the “big city where dreams come true”. But I should really go, NOW, because I’d get inspired, be exposed to the best of the best, and even if I don’t get opportunities at the highest level I can start small at a local level and climb to the top.
Undoubtedly, I need to leave. But with everything good going on, when the time arrives, when the exit door cracks open and I need to bolt through it before it seals again, would I unroot myself from everything that I’ve sowed: contacts, networks, visibility, reputation. Would I have become too comfortable, unwilling to start from scratch in foreign city?
