True story: the 4 friends

The 4 of us met 11 years ago during our freshman year at a university close to our home in Europe. All of us were tight during our university years and we are still tight today. All 4 of us have the same education (Master degree in Software Engineering), with minor specialization differences. All of us are between 30-32 years old at the moment.

Nr1: was born with a bad liver. He lost his best years (mid 20’s) fighting for his life while waiting for a transplantation. He got his transplantation a couple of years ago and is now doing well. He is earning 2nd most in the gang and is currently single because he had to reject a girl during his sickly days and he never found one ever since.

Nr2: is the one who’s earning most in the gang (about twice as much as nr3 who’s earning the least). He has his apartment paid up + a brand new luxury car and hefty savings in the bank. He is however currently suffering from a broken heart after losing his girlfriend of 2 years to another guy.

Nr3: the only foreign guy in the gang. He is climbing the slowest in terms of career, but still has a stable economy. He recently got married to a bride he met a few weeks prior to the wedding (arranged marriage, weird but normal in his culture) and is currently working on the essentials to get his wife over here before starting a family.

Nr4: oh boy did this guy have a wild ride. He was the one we all thought would climb the ranks fastest, until one day he was sent for a 2 month business trip to China that he never returned from. He sent in his resignation, dumped his local girlfriend of 9 years that he was engaged to, married a Chinese and got a kid with her. He also holds his own in terms of income as he is working in Hong Kong, but he is working very long hours compared to the rest of us.

Summary:
While I know that this post only scratched the surface of our lives, it still summarized the overall situation pretty well (and I guess that’s what we will have to go on, without scrutinizing too deeply). It’s just a philosophical moment about who of these you would want to be if you had to choose one.

Since I’m not disclosing which one I am in order to not skew the votes, all I will say is: I’m reasonably satisfied with life, but I’m certainly not the happiest in the gang. There are some things that I wish were different.