Strong Winds Diary from Mama's Garden

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I just finished the latest NIKKE event storyline, and honestly, it hit me hard — I cried a lot 🥲

Watching Dorothy go from being adored by everyone, to being cast aside, to struggling in pain, and finally spiraling all the way down.

I keep thinking real-life education and the way we're raised carries a lot of the same dynamics.

From childhood we're carrying our parents' expectations and our teachers' hopes, and then the moment we hit the working world it's coworkers, bosses, and every relative and friend piling pressure on top of that.

How much do you make a month? What's your job title? When are you getting married? Why don't you have kids yet? How's so-and-so's kid doing compared to you...

These might just feel like typical small talk at family gatherings and holidays, but I can't help thinking that in a society where life is already this hard, that kind of talk is its own quiet form of psychological pressure.

Taiwan's education system never really taught kids how to think through their own life path, or figure out what actually fits them. Most of us don't figure out what we actually want until we've been out in the world for a while, bumping into things the hard way.

That includes me, and it probably includes a lot of you watching too — maybe you're going through this right now, or about to. I hope we can all keep pushing through it together.