«Now and in the Future»

Satmukhametova Araylym, 87781153127, thesakh@icloud.com

For someone, a journey is simply an unattainable dream, and for another — a way to step out of the comfort zone and broaden one’s horizons. Being a university student, every schoolchild dreams of visiting a foreign country at least once, while at the same time, not fully understanding the whole essence of the process and facing refusals from their parents, they leave it to fate.

Student life is the moment of forming the true «self», when you must understand what you want from life and what you can do for that. And one day you will get a chance to correct your direction — when you learn about student exchange programs. In modern society all information is available on the Internet, and program advertisements on social networks increase interest with every view. But a person who has only just learned about this opportunity acts in only one of two ways. I will illustrate with the example of two personalities.

The first person — «X» (iks). He always dreamed of going abroad, watches films in English, attended extra classes during school years, and then one weekend, lying on his bed and scrolling through his TikTok feed, he saw a video of someone talking about their experience in the USA, how they got into a student exchange program and were spending unforgettable moments of their life. After watching such a video no one will be left without motivation, and accordingly person «X» saved that video. But the next day everything was forgotten, and the video sank lower and lower among the saved ones. A month later he accidentally met a long-time acquaintance at a bus stop and they started a conversation, during which the friend said he was going to apply to an exchange program and suggested he fulfill his dream as well. Thinking it all over before sleep, person «X» decided that he still wouldn't pass the selection, that his English had weakened, that he didn't want to spend money on it, that others were better than him, and so on. In short — he looked for excuses for everything, and as a result those excuses defeated him. But who knew that at the same time someone named «U» (ee-grik) was building his fate in parallel. After classes at the university he was returning home on bus No. 9 and reflected on life. Once he dreamt of becoming a traveler like on “Oryol i Reshka”, having a golden card and living in the moment, but now he had zero motivation to do anything and he didn't understand what he wanted at all. In the evening, while he was doing his homework, his little brother came into the room, put a brochure on the table and said that it would be more useful to him. The brochure was about the "Work and Travel" program, where everything was laid out in detail. Having read all the pages, lights appeared in his eyes; he already imagined walking around Times Square and taking pictures with the flag of Kazakhstan. And suddenly he thought: “what if I don't pass? What if my visa is not approved? What if they don't like me?” — and such thoughts chased him until night. But he still decided to go for it, because life is given only once, and you must live it without regrets. Thus, in the morning at the table he told his parents about it, after which the expression on their faces changed, and they began to say things like “they're scammers, why would they send you abroad?”, “do you want to run away from us?”, “isn't your study here enough?”, “do you think you'll pass with your level of English?”...

There was nothing to say in response. What had he expected, and what did he get as a result? Only disappointment in life. He simply left the brochure and walked out of the house. What was the probability that his parents would let him go and support him? At the moment 0%.

During the break between classes everyone sat in the cafeteria, where they were passionately discussing their futures. One girl said that her brother two years ago had been to the USA on a student exchange program, and after that he changed 180 degrees for the better: he became open and cheerful, and most importantly he realized that he wanted to be a top-level chef, and now he is studying to become a head chef.

"I wish that were me," thought person «U». And suddenly a classmate sitting nearby said: “if this is your dream, then you must not give it up, cling to it however you can and only then will you see the result.”

'He is right; maybe I just need to talk to my parents like an adult, they are worried about me too. I just need to explain everything to them in detail, properly.' So he did. Although at first he failed to establish a good rapport, in the end his parents agreed to go with him to the application center. And so began intense days of discovering something new.

And suddenly he realized that he was sitting in front of his coordinator and receiving his long-awaited visa. A VISA? YES, A VISA!

Could it all really have come true?

Everything comes true if you put in a little effort for it, because the result will certainly not disappoint anyone. What did I want to show with this? So, life is a complex mathematical function in which you will either become X or U. And the formula in this case is y = x + 1, x - a person with dreams and doubts;

1 - effort, work and persistence;

y - a person with results and with victory over himself. Each time the function's formula becomes more and more complicated, so to solve them you need to start with this and then it will become easier to understand further.

All this was happening now, but what will happen in the future?

In 20 years, person «X» sat and watched his favorite program "Over the World" on TV and still dreamed of being abroad, at the same time person «U» also sat and watched the same program on TV and thought: “How young I look on television, where should I shoot the next episode?!"...