Not Shawshank

Back to AA

I had a colleague at K, who is a PhD student in THU and has been working as an intern there for more than 3 years.
Interestingly, though having these years in industry, he is desperate to find a teaching job (ideally AP) in a top university. A 211+ school in or near Beijing, to be specific, as his GF is already working in Beijing.
I could not get his mindset, and at my final day I asked him why. Why you must be a professor, why not make more money in industry, why it must be Beijing?
“Have you watched Shawshank? I want to be institutionalized.”
I was quite shocked.
To me he is already the opposition to many of my ideal principles: don’t let your partner ‘limit’ your choice, choose the money job if the other is about love, choose a different place for your next journey, …etc, but at that moment his “institutionalized” words sounded really courageous to me.
You see? Of course I personally do not want to be institutionalized, such as doing same things every day, having the same un-evolving mindset through the years, but partly it’s because I perhaps am not ready for some more responsibility. And those unconventional and crazy thoughts of mine, are they partly serving as a run-away from some more real and imminent challenges?
It’s 5+ years into adulthood now. Based on those years’ interaction and observation, we seemed to have formed some quite different life styles and ideologies, but I guess lots of us are still seeking and ready to change.
F.Y.