By the time dinner ended, it was clear to me he was not going to quit his job anytime soon. Besides finding his work fulfilling in some ways (the job is not easy by the way), he was held up by the promise of hope, that the people and environment will change for the better. And that he wants to see this challenge through and not look back on this juncture and lament what could have been the possibilities if he had stayed on.
He returned me a book when I lent to him earlier, Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan". As I was browsing through the book subsequently, this chapter stood out and I would like to just extract these few paragraphs which could remind him that he needs to move on when enough is enough.
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GD is a man of promise. He has just graduated from the military academy with the rank of junior officer, and active life is just starting. But things did not turn out as planned: his initial four-year assignment is a remote outpost - not too desirable a position.
GD thinks that his assignment in the outpost is temporary, a way for him to pay his dues before more appealing positions present themselves.
What is GD to do in this hole? He discovers a loophole, a way to be transferred after only four months. He decides to use the loophole.
At the very last minute, however, GD takes a glance at the desert from the window of the medical office and decides to extend his stay.....
Sure enough, GD spends the rest of his life extending his stay, delaying the beginning of his life in the city - thirty-five years of pure hope, spent in the grip of the idea that one day, from the remote hills that no human has ever crossed, the attackers will eventually emerge and help him rise to the occasion.
At the end of the novel, we see GD dying in a roadside inn as the event for which he has waited all his life takes place. He has missed it.
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