A Toast to the New Year

This post will admittedly be smashed together with less care than I would like. That being said, I will try to finish before I head off for my New Years Eve plans. 

I never have made New Years resolutions mainly because I thought it was an arbitrary time to suddenly flip a switch and I believe change is a process more than an abrupt reformation. I am making one this year because this arbitrary time comes at a time that I recognize the need for a paradigm shift. It goes without saying but I have learned “heaps” this year as the Aussies would say.  I have, many times fallen on my face while thinking I was gracefully dancing through other people’s lands and lives. With what I’ve learned and continue to learn, I will reshape my path.

Through my experience my awareness has sharpened. I went into my travels very abruptly and very green. Luckily I had a sizeable hunger for adventure and experience and a benevolently open mind. I have however proven that it is possible to have a paradoxically open mind with a steadfast stubbornness.  That is a combination that mitigated my enjoyment of fruits my travel has had to offer.  It lead me to accept but not assimilate. 

It is important to distinguish between the two in this setting. As an American I recognize that we must accept and value other culture as a result of and a sole solution to being part of the biggest melting pot humanity has ever seen. It is virtuous to respect others and allow them their freedom to act and think as they please. However, this also acts justify our isolation from one another. Acceptance and isolation work synergistically to make two typically American qualities.

There is another face to open mindedness; a different level. It goes beyond accepting and into connecting. I have learned through a complete failure in Holland and by example in Bulgaria. There is considerably a lot more of yourself to risk when you break down your walls and/or cross the bridge and/or pick your own analogy and allow yourself to put aside some of own beliefs and ways and adopt those of the people who have adopted you.  I believe that the reward however greatly outweighs the risk.  There a fair amount of trepidation in setting aside parts of yourself to adopt new ways. The fear and the question is that some part of you that you recognize as essential to yourself will die and you will no longer be yourself.  I cannot answer that question. And even though I cannot rationally justify making the effort to adopt these new pieces (probably because I am getting texts the people are already beginning to drink) but inductively, I know it’s right.

I would like to develop this more but now is not the time. To my arbitrarily coincidental paradigm shift: To dive in and soak it in. To broaden this beyond culture to personally. To go beyond accepting differences and into easing the softening of a paradigm that I live in to allow people to invite closeness rather than the cheap acceptance. I am sincere about this but its time for me to go! Happy New Year and God Bless and give love and be free this new year;  it may be our last!