In theory, a system is something that should make us feel comfortable, supported and allow us to blossom. Unfortunately, in practice, it fails repeatedly and I’m the living proof. Growing up in a Polish household with a single mum and a younger brother, there’s been a lot of expectations of me. Filling in for my mum when it came to my brother as well as taking care of her has never been an easy task. I imagined moving to London from a poor city in Poland as a dream as if it was going to be Hollywood and I was Marylin Monroe. Of course, that was an absolutely ridiculous thought and life brought me straight back to Earth as soon as I realised that all i could say in English was “hello” and “toilet”. So as you can probably imagine, this didn’t get me very far. I have worked hard all my life and had to grow up fast. I had my first job for £3 an hour when I was thirteen, cleaning offices in Liverpool Street during late nights after school. Not the greatest, but every penny counted. I was always taught that if I work hard and study hard, I will be successful and powerful — just because that’s what the system told us.
There are always two sides to a coin. I always appreciated education and hard work and believed that if I keep going I will finally be rewarded. However, time has shown me that this coin was only one sided, because I’ve been working so hard, and I watched my mum…
