There are certain times in life that the only way to get through a situation is to just let go. To let go of what you thought it would be, what you want to get out of it, and how it affects your daily life.
I have been here in India working at this children's home for about 3 weeks and I have been clinging not only to the many preconceptions of what I hoped it would be, but also to basic things like personal space and free/alone time. I have been desperately holding on to these ideas and this in turn has made dealing with my troubles of being here that much more difficult.
It wasnt until I let go of all of this that I began to really be at peace with being here. Not until I gave up my constant and very strong desire for personal space and alone time was I able to address each situation more calmly and less frustrated, making me more at peace with being here and more loving toward the people who are constantly surrounding me.
I think we all tend to do this. We hold on so tight to what we want out of a situation that when it doesn't deliver these requests we find ourselves frustrated and short-tempered.
At work, at home, with family, with friends. We begin to be filled with resentment and unerlying anger toward each situation and the people involved. This leads to comlpete counter-productivity and is very dangerous for our hearts. But if we only were able to slowly let go of all the different expectations and ideas that we cling so tight to we would be able to let each situation be what it is. The reality of the situation would be in our present mind instead of some dream idea of what we conceive it to be.
It has taken me nearly all of 3 weeks to know and be okay with the fact that the only time I will be physically alone is when I go to the bathroom. I had to let go. I now see this is a very simple example but I think the idea can be applied to the smallest and largest aspects of our lives.
We have to be able to adjust, to evolve our minds to whatever phyiscal or mental situation we are in. Only when we do this are we able to experience the truth and meaning of what we are presently involved in and understand and learn from it.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Thanks for the hard times, seriously.
Like most people, I tend to avoid things that will obviously be difficult or strenuous. I think thats simple human nature. There is no need to throw ourselves into situations that will be hard on our spirit if they are at all avoidable.
But then there's how Life works. And Life sometimes just throws you into a difficult or hard situation and you never saw it coming.
How do you repsond to this? How do you react?
Life has thrown me into a difficult situation here in India and I find myself and my spirit being attacked on a daily basis. I have a strong spirit but I definitely feel like I am treading water here, bearly staying afloat.
I used to get frustrated and angry and yell at God, "What is the point of this? It's so stupid. It's useless."
But I now realize that everytime we are thrown into a difficult situation there is a very specific reason we are there. Most the time we dont know what that reason is until long after the actual situation is over. When I moved to San Francisco, I felt horribly alone for nearly 6 months. I had met people and had friends but still struggled with this unexplainable weight of anxiety due to loneliness. It was terrible and I would never wish that on anybody. But about the time that this feeling began to move away from me, I started to plan this trip: A world tour for nearly 2 years - Alone.
You can see this anyway you want, but I know that what I experienced in San Francisco was necessary for me to endure in order to make it through and thoroughly enjoy this journey.
You know that old quote, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? It means alot more when you look at it through the lense of your own life.
Where I am right now isn't really my ideal situation, but I know I am being broken or prepared for something else, something bigger and more important. And when I can look at it this way I grow thankful in my heart that I am here. Now. And when I look back in a month or a year at my experience here I can laugh at how instrumental it was in some other aspect of my life.
But then there's how Life works. And Life sometimes just throws you into a difficult or hard situation and you never saw it coming.
How do you repsond to this? How do you react?
Life has thrown me into a difficult situation here in India and I find myself and my spirit being attacked on a daily basis. I have a strong spirit but I definitely feel like I am treading water here, bearly staying afloat.
I used to get frustrated and angry and yell at God, "What is the point of this? It's so stupid. It's useless."
But I now realize that everytime we are thrown into a difficult situation there is a very specific reason we are there. Most the time we dont know what that reason is until long after the actual situation is over. When I moved to San Francisco, I felt horribly alone for nearly 6 months. I had met people and had friends but still struggled with this unexplainable weight of anxiety due to loneliness. It was terrible and I would never wish that on anybody. But about the time that this feeling began to move away from me, I started to plan this trip: A world tour for nearly 2 years - Alone.
You can see this anyway you want, but I know that what I experienced in San Francisco was necessary for me to endure in order to make it through and thoroughly enjoy this journey.
You know that old quote, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? It means alot more when you look at it through the lense of your own life.
Where I am right now isn't really my ideal situation, but I know I am being broken or prepared for something else, something bigger and more important. And when I can look at it this way I grow thankful in my heart that I am here. Now. And when I look back in a month or a year at my experience here I can laugh at how instrumental it was in some other aspect of my life.
My Anniversary
It has been a year since I jumped on my first flight from LAX to Peru. Since then I have traversed 4 continents, traveled through 10 countries, and have taken part in 6 volunteer projects.
Its been quite a year.
Though my calender says its been 12 months since I left, I dont feel like I have been gone that long. Each new place seems to consume me and my time there is over before I know it. Its not until I sit and read through my journal or go through the posts from last March that I am aware of the time that has passed.
I am beyond grateful for being able to do what I am doing. This is my dream. I remember sitting in my office in San Francisco, fed up with work and life in general, and thinking to myself that it would be amazing to just leave all this behind and go. See the world. Do something different for a change.
And now here I am, a year later with another 10 months to go.
Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me in this journey/pilgrimage/trip in any way. Thank to all my family and friends for constantly writing and making me feel as if you are just a phone call away. I will be forever in your debt.
Here's to another year of living, learning, and feeling.
Its been quite a year.
Though my calender says its been 12 months since I left, I dont feel like I have been gone that long. Each new place seems to consume me and my time there is over before I know it. Its not until I sit and read through my journal or go through the posts from last March that I am aware of the time that has passed.
I am beyond grateful for being able to do what I am doing. This is my dream. I remember sitting in my office in San Francisco, fed up with work and life in general, and thinking to myself that it would be amazing to just leave all this behind and go. See the world. Do something different for a change.
And now here I am, a year later with another 10 months to go.
Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me in this journey/pilgrimage/trip in any way. Thank to all my family and friends for constantly writing and making me feel as if you are just a phone call away. I will be forever in your debt.
Here's to another year of living, learning, and feeling.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Honda Dealers and Sidewalk Slums
It hadn't been but 5 minutes after I left the airport in Chennai, India that we drove by a Honda dealership on one side if the road and on the other there was a slum lining the sidewalk.
So many of my friends who have been to India kept telling me that there is virtually no line seperating poverty and wealth in India. They said that povery and wealth were not found on opposite sides of town, but existing hand in hand all over. I don't think I really understood the magnitude of what they were saying until I drove down that street.
There is an overwhelming feeling of helplessness when you see this type of reality for the first time. I have been all over the world but none of my travels have really prepared me for the degree of poverty here in India. It's unavoidable and unescapeable.
It has continued to amaze me that where you are born basically can decide whether you eat or go hungry, whether you are housed or homeless. And in many cases, whether you live or whether you die. How has this become possible? Where did things go so wrong?
I wish I had some great wisdom to end this with but really this is just me thinking out loud, trying to work through the intracicies of our existence.
I think that life will continue to throw these types of things at me. Situations that have no acceptable explanation. And all that lingers in my mind after stuggling with this day and night is that I have to do something about it. I have to begin to live for something more than myself.
So many of my friends who have been to India kept telling me that there is virtually no line seperating poverty and wealth in India. They said that povery and wealth were not found on opposite sides of town, but existing hand in hand all over. I don't think I really understood the magnitude of what they were saying until I drove down that street.
There is an overwhelming feeling of helplessness when you see this type of reality for the first time. I have been all over the world but none of my travels have really prepared me for the degree of poverty here in India. It's unavoidable and unescapeable.
It has continued to amaze me that where you are born basically can decide whether you eat or go hungry, whether you are housed or homeless. And in many cases, whether you live or whether you die. How has this become possible? Where did things go so wrong?
I wish I had some great wisdom to end this with but really this is just me thinking out loud, trying to work through the intracicies of our existence.
I think that life will continue to throw these types of things at me. Situations that have no acceptable explanation. And all that lingers in my mind after stuggling with this day and night is that I have to do something about it. I have to begin to live for something more than myself.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Small Things
I find that while I have been gone I tend to focus on what I an doing as a big picture. And all the small mundane daily actions and interactions just fall lightly somewhere into this big picture.
But I was reminding a few days ago that though the big picture ultimately stamps who were are in that period of time, its the mundane daily details to define who we really are.
Everyday we have the opportunity to say hello to someone when they look at us instead of putting our heads down. Everyday we have to chance to put our candy wrapper in the trash instead of throwing it on the ground. Everyday we have the amazing possibility to use ever small, mundane thing we do to become better people.
Its easy to step back from life and try to see it as a big picture and that everything we are and do falls into that picture and defines us. I tend to do that quite a bit. As much as that is true, I believe it stumbles us from seeing all the small opporunities we have to be somebody great. Because really, throwing a piece of trash in the bin isnt that epic or exciting. But if we wake up day after day and commit ourselves to living life for the small things like throwing our wrapper away or smiling at somebody we dont know, we will begin to slowly become the amazing people we are meant to be.
There's the old saying that big things come in small packages. I think we can apply this to the little things in life. For every small thing we do, there is a big opportunity to let it change who we are. Though these opportunities appear like small insignificant daily tasks they are really thousands of chances for us to become better and more loving people.
Its all about the small things.
But I was reminding a few days ago that though the big picture ultimately stamps who were are in that period of time, its the mundane daily details to define who we really are.
Everyday we have the opportunity to say hello to someone when they look at us instead of putting our heads down. Everyday we have to chance to put our candy wrapper in the trash instead of throwing it on the ground. Everyday we have the amazing possibility to use ever small, mundane thing we do to become better people.
Its easy to step back from life and try to see it as a big picture and that everything we are and do falls into that picture and defines us. I tend to do that quite a bit. As much as that is true, I believe it stumbles us from seeing all the small opporunities we have to be somebody great. Because really, throwing a piece of trash in the bin isnt that epic or exciting. But if we wake up day after day and commit ourselves to living life for the small things like throwing our wrapper away or smiling at somebody we dont know, we will begin to slowly become the amazing people we are meant to be.
There's the old saying that big things come in small packages. I think we can apply this to the little things in life. For every small thing we do, there is a big opportunity to let it change who we are. Though these opportunities appear like small insignificant daily tasks they are really thousands of chances for us to become better and more loving people.
Its all about the small things.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Forget Something...?
In the 9 months since I have left Peru, I have not been able to replicate the amazing and intimate connection that I had with the people there. I have tried to explain the unexplainable closeness I had with the people I was working with there. And though the work I have done since had influences me in so many ways, I have yet to understand what it was that created that intimancy with the people in Peru.
I seriously could not pinpoint an action or event that would give way to any type of explanation for this until last night.
I was listening to one of my favorite speaking, Rob Bell, and he was talking about our responsibilities as Americans to reach out to the opressed and marginalized. Its nothing new, nothing that we dont know. But at one point in his talk, he said something that instantly made me realize that had forgotten to do something so simple but so important: We need to love people.
Yeah, that simple right? I know that already.
But I realized in that moment that somewhere inbetween leaving Peru and entering Mongolia I stopped loving the people I had came to work with and live with. I was still there working and trying to do what I could with the little time I had butistopped trying to connect with the people. I think i began to see what I was doing as a job and not as the original commitment I had made to God: To love the people I am surrounded by and learn from them.
I dont say this to belittle the work I have done since Peru but my heart has been plagued with this absence of connection, and I didnt know why until yesterday. I let my heart and mind settle on the idea that working itself was enough, that being there was enough. And by doing that I lost the intimate and irreplaceable bond that only truly loving someone can form.
I think its easy for us to lose sight of this day in and day out. There is so much going on throughout our days that trying to show a bit of love to everyone you meet becomes a serious burden.
Loving people means going out of your way to give a friend a ride to work because their car broke down.
Loving people means staying up all night to talk with a heavy-hearted friend even though you have to work early the next morning.
Loving people means actually listening when people talk, instead of just waiting to speak.
And loving people means still going to play with the kids after a 9 hour journey to Burma to get your visa renued.
Somewhere along the lines, I forgot to do the most important thing I can do: Love
I seriously could not pinpoint an action or event that would give way to any type of explanation for this until last night.
I was listening to one of my favorite speaking, Rob Bell, and he was talking about our responsibilities as Americans to reach out to the opressed and marginalized. Its nothing new, nothing that we dont know. But at one point in his talk, he said something that instantly made me realize that had forgotten to do something so simple but so important: We need to love people.
Yeah, that simple right? I know that already.
But I realized in that moment that somewhere inbetween leaving Peru and entering Mongolia I stopped loving the people I had came to work with and live with. I was still there working and trying to do what I could with the little time I had butistopped trying to connect with the people. I think i began to see what I was doing as a job and not as the original commitment I had made to God: To love the people I am surrounded by and learn from them.
I dont say this to belittle the work I have done since Peru but my heart has been plagued with this absence of connection, and I didnt know why until yesterday. I let my heart and mind settle on the idea that working itself was enough, that being there was enough. And by doing that I lost the intimate and irreplaceable bond that only truly loving someone can form.
I think its easy for us to lose sight of this day in and day out. There is so much going on throughout our days that trying to show a bit of love to everyone you meet becomes a serious burden.
Loving people means going out of your way to give a friend a ride to work because their car broke down.
Loving people means staying up all night to talk with a heavy-hearted friend even though you have to work early the next morning.
Loving people means actually listening when people talk, instead of just waiting to speak.
And loving people means still going to play with the kids after a 9 hour journey to Burma to get your visa renued.
Somewhere along the lines, I forgot to do the most important thing I can do: Love
Friday, February 15, 2008
Attitude
I have consistently gone through these periods of time since I have been gone that are plagued with an unwarranted "attitude" toward life and the way things work out for different people, even if those people arent anger about it themselves.
The attitude is sometimes characterized by anger, sometimes pride, or experience. And in the worst of these times it is a combination of all these things. Its as if I am saying to God or whoever, "Well...what do you have to say about this?" And then I arrogantly wait for some answer.
I think that if you look through my blog you can probably see in my writing when I am going through one of these times or when I have just came out of it. Not to say that what I write at those times is insignificant or irrelevant, but you can definitely see an attitude in the way I word things. I have been trying to figure out why my heart seems to fall into these "dark" valleys of pessimism and sarcasm and I cant seem to see it coming or dont recognize it until the time is over.
I am beginning to think that it is a way of trying to avoid experiencing the negative emotions that come with the type of things I am doing. I think for me it is easier to get angry and point fingers and ask questions that dont have good answers so I can feel prideful than to just cry and experience the pain that certain experiences bring with them. Its quite childish now that I see it written out, but I think it might be true for many of us.
What I do know is that when I let this happen my spirit is "loud" and uneasy. My thoughts are all incomplete and my words are weightless. Everything that comes from my body and being is inconsistent and arrogrant. And its in these times that I feel I have so much to prove to everyone. That what I "know" is what everyone needs to "learn." My "voice" needs to be heard, I arrogantly think to myself.
Its not until these times have passed and my spirit is humble and at rest that I realize what I have just let myself become. Its like night and day. And when I am "restored" my humbled spirit all I want to do is listen to people and understand them. My "attitude" of sorts is completely reversed. Its at this point I realize that my "voice" is but a faint whisper and can easily be blown away with the wind.
I pray that I will be able to set my pride down for just a minute when I see myself falling into this "attitude" and ask the people around me to remind of how much I am not.
The attitude is sometimes characterized by anger, sometimes pride, or experience. And in the worst of these times it is a combination of all these things. Its as if I am saying to God or whoever, "Well...what do you have to say about this?" And then I arrogantly wait for some answer.
I think that if you look through my blog you can probably see in my writing when I am going through one of these times or when I have just came out of it. Not to say that what I write at those times is insignificant or irrelevant, but you can definitely see an attitude in the way I word things. I have been trying to figure out why my heart seems to fall into these "dark" valleys of pessimism and sarcasm and I cant seem to see it coming or dont recognize it until the time is over.
I am beginning to think that it is a way of trying to avoid experiencing the negative emotions that come with the type of things I am doing. I think for me it is easier to get angry and point fingers and ask questions that dont have good answers so I can feel prideful than to just cry and experience the pain that certain experiences bring with them. Its quite childish now that I see it written out, but I think it might be true for many of us.
What I do know is that when I let this happen my spirit is "loud" and uneasy. My thoughts are all incomplete and my words are weightless. Everything that comes from my body and being is inconsistent and arrogrant. And its in these times that I feel I have so much to prove to everyone. That what I "know" is what everyone needs to "learn." My "voice" needs to be heard, I arrogantly think to myself.
Its not until these times have passed and my spirit is humble and at rest that I realize what I have just let myself become. Its like night and day. And when I am "restored" my humbled spirit all I want to do is listen to people and understand them. My "attitude" of sorts is completely reversed. Its at this point I realize that my "voice" is but a faint whisper and can easily be blown away with the wind.
I pray that I will be able to set my pride down for just a minute when I see myself falling into this "attitude" and ask the people around me to remind of how much I am not.
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