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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Underachiever here - age 43 - 225k as a lawyer at a financial regulator. Did the biglaw thing for 8 years so I guess I made money there, but not the type of money that associates make now and I had no prayer of making partner. Yes I'm plenty Americanized with ivy degrees and all but coming up for partner in 2008 in NYC didn't help - no one was going to stick their neck out for me and my career never recovered. So here I am stuck in government.[/quote]

you are not an underachiever....[/quote]

Objectively I get that but it doesn't feel that way when every uncle in town - and to an extent my own parents - are constantly like partner partner partner, you didn't make partner, after all that money your parents spent sending you to the ivys blah blah. They act like the 2008 recession was a personal failing. Sure I guess it was a personal failing to not want to jump to another firm and slog it out for another 5 years to try to make it, but I just didn't have it in me to work the 80-90 hr NYC weeks for that much longer with no guarantees; another thing these uncles - most of whom never worked more than 40.0 hours a day in their lives in engineering do not understand. (I do understand that many many Indian immigrants slogged out much much longer hours, but the ones judging me were all in engineering and all had the 40 hours and I'm checked out by 5 pm lives.)[/quote]

You need to live your life per what pleases you.  Tell your uncles, parents they are no longer in the “old country” where you’re never good enough as a person if you don’t excel professionally.  Life really is very temporary, a game of sorts and sadly the legacy Indian culture is blind to this fact.  Refreshingly with newer generations, I’m seeing Indian kids become teachers, journalists, firemen, cops, chefs, etc.  The fear factor decreases with each generation.  [/quote]

+1000. I frankly wouldn't even tell them anything bc you can't teach a 70 or 80 year old who isn't willing to learn. Just ignore, live your life, enjoy your great salary and benefits while NOT working 90 hours/week.

B[b]ut listen sometimes about how unhappy some of these 70-80+ year olds in our community really are. They never lived their own lives -[/b] it was all about what THEIR mommies and daddies wanted them to do and then they turned around and hovered over their own kids for the next 30 years. I mean it's sad that an entire generation of elders lived life out of obligation, to impress the Patels or the Khans or whomever, and really don't even know themselves, their own likes/dislikes, don't have any hobbies besides counting money - their own and everyone else's. And now all they can do is sit around and gossip about you - because the only way to feel better is to put someone else down.

I'm super proud of our younger generations - the kids who are currently in their 20s. Their 50 year old parents have backed off to an extent - and if they haven't - these 21 year olds have no problem telling mom and dad to shove it, as they get jobs in urban planning, speech therapy, and whatever else they want to do. Sorry auntie and uncle, not everyone dreams of being an engineer, dr, or lawyer.[/quote]

I completely agree.  I have a lot of sympathy because they had to sacrifice everything and never got to live out their own personal dreams, especially the women.  So they transport their unfulfilled ambitions on their children and grandchildren. Moreover they are guilty of wanting to impress friends and neighbors with their kids’ accomplishments. Unfortunately, our parents information about work, college and everything else is so outdated and completely wrong. So it just leads to debates IMO. [/quote]

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