Aging should never be a reason of getting married and leaving your passion

Once I read somewhere and I totally believe it. “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it does not matter.”

My Name is Aysh and I am 26 years old, a middle class girl from Pakistan. I have got a bachelors degree in Business Management with Human Resource specialization in 2012. Then because of my financial situation, I quit studies and started doing job. I did multiple jobs ranging from paid intern, receptionist, assistant accountant, call center representative, office coordinator, customer services representative and now HR manager from September 2012 till now. And with job, I again started studies and got a masters degree in Politics in 2015. Doing job was my need because my father has been died when I was 13 years old and I am elder sibling in family. My younger brother died in 2013. Second brother is uneducated and younger sister is in 10th class. So in short, I am the sole earner of my family and my sister’s education is also dependent on my salary.

I read the email from World Pulse regarding “Aging” on 14th July 2017 and at that moment I had no idea that I am going to write on it. Because on 12th July I faced an incident of harassment and I was in trauma even after 2 days. But then things changed very suddenly, I got a confirmation call for the job of HR Manager from a very famous luxury car dealing company of Pakistan. The salary package was almost double from last job and designation was also very good as compare to CSR in Telecom sector.

So I was very happy and decided to resign from previous job. 16th July was even amazing day when I got an email from World Pulse about the blog I wrote on harassment incident happened to me has been selected for publication on all the forums of World Pulse. I can’t express my happiness of that moment. I shared the news of both things on my personal face book account because I wanted all my friends should be part of my happiness.

Selection as HR Manager in the biggest luxury car dealing company and being the blogger of an international NGO was the biggest things in my whole life. I got these two things after a very long struggle and I felt that now my career is on right path and my time has come.

But then another thing happened which motivates me to write that Aging should not stop anyone from the doing the things one wants and that was the response I received on my face book post. That was extreme shocking and disappointing. More than 50% people in my friend list thought that this is not a big thing. They sent messages in my inbox that I am showing the level of happiness which I should show when I will get engaged or married. Getting a job or selecting as a blogger is good but not as good as finding a spouse. They tried to make me feel that my real success is getting married now because I have been 26 years old and lucky girls get married till that age. They said, after 25 years it’s almost impossible for a girl to find a suitable spouse. They advised me that now I should be more concerned about my marriage rather than concentrating on my career. The same kind of response I got from my relatives. They congratulated me with the advice that now I should get married as I am settled now and it’s already too late for me to get married.

This entire thing was extreme hurting because I got recognition and designation after the struggle of many years. I did this struggle alone. I thanked God for helping me and giving me this respect. The response from the people around me made me feel that in my culture the only medium of success for a girl is getting married and depending on a man. Her struggle for education, for the survival of herself and family, doing work day and night, facing harassment with bravery can’t make her example for others but when she gets married till 25, she is considered successful. Then if she makes a lot of compromises on her wishes for the happiness of her husband and in laws, she would be considered even pious girl.

But if a girl like me chooses a different way and works to make her enough independent that she can live on her own ad can help others, she is considered a fool.

Though this response was much discouraging but I did not let myself to be discouraged. I gathered all my broken pieces and started my new job with full enthusiasm and also decided to write about this for World Pulse. Because I believe that these things can’t make me weak and can’t force me to decide to leave my career at this point for marriage

I decided to question this self made rule according to which a girl should get married till the age of 25. I am not against getting married but it should be when you are ready for it. There should not be a predefined age for marriage or any other thing.

I want to tell all girls that not getting married till the age of 25 will not make you alone and unsuccessful but getting married in hurry, depending on wrong man and compromising on your passion to please the cultural norms will definitely break you internally.

And according to me, I will get married when I will find the right person. I just started getting the things I desperately wanted since long time, so I am going to enjoy it at maximum, will work hard for my job and will write more for World Pulse. Losing all this at this time just to be good in the eye of people around me is not in to do list right now.

I totally disagree with the idea that there is any specific age of getting married. No age or any other society defined boundary should limit the women of getting what they want. I really do not care what society thinks of me as I believe that God has sent all the things to me which I deserve. So he will send the best spouse for me on right time when I will be ready for it.

Till then I will keep telling myself, “Hey beautiful andstrong woman ! You are a Leader. So Live your life, Love yourself first, work hard, Help others and Spread peace. All the things including love will come to your way on right time.”