Dear Anna,

I’m writing this letter as I sit in my £15 a night flat in Penang. Dummy, the bargain hunter, struck again, and I snapped up the cheapest Airbnb I could find on the island. Sure, I would rather sit on a balcony, overlooking the sea, but I gotta cut my coat according to my cloth. My sensibilities may be of a higher-class woman, but my savings aren’t hefty enough to sustain those delusions. 

Money has been on my mind lately, and I wish it were more in my pocket than on my mind. I chose to quit my steady job and take a break, and now I’m freaking out on my aforementioned break.

I know I’m gonna sound like a teenager whining on Reddit, but I need to get this off my chest. I don’t want to go back to work. Another office job in a corporate environment, and still worrying about money. The constant charade of productivity, mastering the art of looking busy as if coached by George Costanza.

I’m sick of serving a system I don’t care for. People keep regurgitating that Seth Godin bullshit about being a linchpin, remember that book? I keep hearing how I need to develop skills, specialise, stand out, and make myself irreplaceable! Isn’t this just a smoke and mirrors effect, to keep people reaching and aiming, even when most of us would never get where we aspire to? Right now, security is shut up and do as you’re told. If you keep doing that enough, and if things align, then maybe you’ll get a promotion, and make £200 more a month after tax, and keep getting exploited until your retirement at the tender age of 70. What a dream to live for. 

I was on a group tour a few months ago, and there was a Yemeni couple with us. You don’t see many Yemeni tourists around, or women in niqab on group tours, so naturally, they attracted more curiosity than usual. Whenever the husband and wife weren’t nearby, words like oppression and repression dominated the talks, mainly thrown in by the Western women who pitied the Yemeni woman they labelled a victim of the strict Islamic doctrine. The funny thing is, these same women spent hours complaining about their long working weeks at companies that could replace them in seconds, and about the ridiculous financial pressure they were under. Still, they refused to recognise their own exploitation in the same light. Maybe it’s easier to play the saviour to another woman’s perceived subjugation than to face your own. And yet, I still don’t want to go back to work. Does that mean I need to find a Yemeni man, too? 

I don’t know how to go on, Anna. I don’t have infinite resources, my savings are dwindling, and I can’t carry on like this forever. Everyone says, ‘Just get another job,’ but I don’t want to go back to where I was. Am I too stubborn for my own good? Too idealistic perhaps. Sitting around writing manifestos like I’m some armchair Karl Marx lite is a dire attempt at delaying the inevitable. Is it time to face the music and accept that I’m just a cog? A rebel cog at that. 

Call me naive, but I choose the alternative, even when I’m not sure what it is. Is this what they mean by betting on yourself? Cause it feels more like a gambling addiction.

All my love,

Dummy