Thursday, April 17, 2014

Without direction

It has been ages since I wrote in this blog, because I just don't know what to write about.  The idea of this blog was, I think, originally to share my travel adventures but as of late I haven't had many travel adventures and more and more have been settling into life in Colombia.  It seems weird to just blog about my everyday life.  It seems less interesting and certainly very un-profound.

Currently, I am in my "spring break", which in Colombia is actually the Holy Week so for this second half of the break everything will be closed up and the city will be very quiet.  This leaves a lot of time for reflecting and, for me, that often includes stressing as well.  Like my blog, I sometimes worry that I am without direction.  I always had a plan - a plan for the day, the week, the month, the year, the next five years.  Slowly these plans have become less defined.  I definitely still have a daily plan and a weekly plan for work - but not much else.  Is this a problem?  I don't know.

Was wondering today, if some of the feelings I was struggling with were related to culture shock.  Can one really feel culture shock after 3 years in a country?  Turns out yes, but the author of this post calls it culture stripping.  For folks who have not lived out of their home country for an extended period of time, this will sound horrible.  For those who have, maybe it will speak to you.

4 comments:

  1. Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I might be in a constant state of stripping as I often feel comfortable with the discomfort of anywhere and have learned to feel home is where I am . . . in a sense. I think a lot of people always help to remind me (in good and bad ways) that I am not local to the place I am in. But I think you could easily feel non-local to the place from where you actually are or back "home," wherever that is.

    One goal for me is to continually shed those layers (whether in a new culture or right back where I started), both physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, etc. Maybe then I begin reaching to the core of who I want to be and am becoming.

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    1. Victor, Thanks for your insights. From thousands of miles away you continue to inspire me and encourage me to grown and be the best I can be. Thank you.

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  2. Even though I grew up with German culture and never really experienced culture "shock" over here, I am still very conscious of the differences and how they make me feel. A lot of the feelings are good! But sometimes they're negative, and I think that's ok. Expats, like everyone else, are allowed to be annoyed or disappointed at their country sometimes. :)

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    1. Thanks Sophia. Still waiting on the Skype date. I miss you a lot.

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