I don't blame my surroundings for how my life turned out necessarily. Sure, if I lived in a different state, country, or even in a different place in my state that things likely would've been drastically different just because my experiences there with people and things would have been different. Maybe better, maybe worse. The rural school I went to was actually very good, one of the best in the state in fact, even though my graduating class was only 128 people, which I know often surprises people who live in large metros have several hundred more than that and they typically stereotype small town schools to be low quality and filled with dumb people. It makes me feel even more ashamed though, because many of them have gone on to be so successful that they put their face on billboards, or I've seen them in successful medical or engineering careers while I haven't done anything.
I think though, the real shame I feel is because I've never left where I grew up and have been shamed by people who live in cities for not doing so to the point where the shame becomes real, even though I am, for the most part, content with it. I still feel like I missed out when they talk about cool classes they took or cool things they're able to do, but then again even if I had the opportunity for those things I wouldn't like them.
Still, I almost feel an obligation to have done more. It seems a lot of people I know move to different states or at least cities far away from them. Yet I continue to live just 3 miles from my parent's house, working for a company in my town and spend the rest of that time doing nothing. Would that have changed if the population of my cities was 2 million and not 2 thousand? To be honest, I doubt it. I think that is how everyone who feels robbed of the opportunity of the life they want feels, and there are a lot of people who are like that. I don't think it's exclusive to small town people.
