Putting on my Rose-Colored Newcomer Glasses

As I mentioned in the last post, I was losing focus on the Present and was only worried about working hard on the Future. Sure, it’s cool to plan, but when you’re stressed out about outcomes that haven’t even come to pass yet, then you’re missing out on the gift that we call the Present. So I’ve gotten my act together and I am enjoying life as it comes.

I mean I leave on the beach, I have love my job, I have wonderful friends and people that are like family surrounding me and there is SO much here that I have yet to experience.

So I vowed to myself to get back to that mental space of being a newcomer, when you everything is neat, awe inspiring and full of novelty. One thing I have realized about myself is the minute I get comfortable in a place, I feel entitled and let little things annoy me. That’s not easy to admit, but I am finding it to be true.

Like back in the Guayaquil days, when I took the crowded Metrovia to the post office. At first, I thought it was soooo cool and convenient to have a trolley car that zipped up and down the main streets I needed were people could load on and off  from little waiting stations. As soon as I got the knack I found that, that crowded Metro could ruin my mood as I stood there like a sardine in the blistering heat with elbows pressed in my back and armpits in my face. The first week, that was a fun “cultural” experience I could write home about, the next month it’s the bane of my existence. It’s the same with how I can muddle the paradise I live in with complaints of the loud fisherman outside my window, or the incessant music blaring into my house as early as 7:30 in the morning.

 Sure, you may read this and say, “no for real that sounds annoying”, and trust is can be. However, as a newbie, a person that applied to live in another country and experience new things, those are the kinds of things that make a place exotic, the stories you write home about. The things that you have either a good or bad opinion about but you feel truly grateful for both because you have the opportunity to experience it. I know the day is going to come when I am going to long to hear the drunk songs of the fisherman lulling me to sleep, or serving as my wake up call. In the United States our respect for personal space will have me longing for the no holds barred space efficiency model that is the cultural norm here in Ecuador.

You can take every incident and either look at it through a positive light or a negative one. Should I be “happy” about everything that happens to me and around me? No, not everything is agreeable, however, my reaction to everything around me can absolutely change. I have started giving thanks for the bar across the street and the rowdy voices outside my door that serve as my daily alarm clock. Whether I love it or not, it’s these little incidents that shape my experience. An experience I once only dreamed about and one that I am so grateful has come into fruition as an unforgettable chapter in the story of my life.