Why do my Parents have such a hard time understanding why i want to have the freedom in my future to have fun, go on adventures, and do what I love?

     My dad said, “Hard work is necessary and there is no such thing as freedom”. I understand his point of view because his life as he grew up could be described as studying and more studying. He had to go through years of schooling that studying hours every day was absolutely necessary to get to where he is today. That is how his generation grew up thinking and doing. He attended Taiwan’s top college, graduated with two degrees: chemical engineering and computer science, and received a Phd in computer science. Of course he had to spend hours every day studying. From what he said, it seems like students in Taiwan literally had no social life. Their entire day consisted of studying. Their lifestyle as students was waking up at 5 in the morning to go to school, studying at the library, go to tutoring class, do more homework until the early morning hours and sleep for a few hours. His generation had to do that 5 days a week and I’m sure weekends were not much different than the weekdays. Not to mention that their schools there are from 7 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon and they had hours of math problems to do as evidenced by their ability to solve math problems quickly and accurately.

     With my mom, she worked hard all the way through high school. However, in college she says she did not study hard, goofed off, got to have her share of fun, and did not do well academically. Yet she can’t seem to understand that I desire to have fun, and live a more exciting life, especially when all my life has been focused around studying and I haven’t had much excitement in my life. Yes I understand that I have an opportunity to become a RN that many other people in state schools want to get into. I understand that I have an opportunity here. As much as I know I have this opportunity, I can’t say that I love the nursing job itself. I am mostly doing it for the benefits that the travel nursing career has. I feel from the research I’ve done on the travel nursing career that being a travel nurse, I can go explore, on adventures when I am working my 13 weeks assignment and that after the 13 week assignment, I can take a month off, to go traveling and really focus on traveling, going on adventures, really focus on adventure hobbies, and meeting people and connecting with others. If travel nursing did not have the time off and three work days a week, I would not be in the nursing career. Nursing career does pay decently well, but if it were not for the free time I could get with this career, I would not be in nursing school right now.    

     I don’t have that much of a problem with working hard academically. I have a problem with what I am able to do during school breaks. I want more freedom to be able to go skiing with my friends, to hang out with my friends without my mom constantly treating me like I am a naïve little kid who is unaware of the potential dangers out there. I want them to trust me more with what I want to do in my life.