"Our lives are frittered away by particular. Simplify. Simplify."– Thoreau
In January of 2014 I left my home in Seattle to travel to Peru to volunteer for four months with at risk children. I hopped on a aeroplane with my rusty Spanish skills and expected smooth sailing from there. I was not prepared for what was to come, but that is why it worked out perfectly. Honestly, if I had known I would be speaking fully in Spanish, planning and managing a summer camp for 40 kids, education math and science in a foreign language and working ten hour days, I probably would not have gone.
It was through being challenged everyday, and questioning if I would brand information technology through my volunteer commitment that I was able to grow and accept so much away from my time.
I was constantly humbled, frustrated, and exhausted, but total of joy. As I left Seattle, I was nervous virtually what my volunteering experience would be in Republic of peru. And as I left Peru, I was total of excitement to exist going abode, just that same nervous feeling came back to me. I was going dorsum to a familiar place, but I felt dissimilar. My life had not been changed in any drastic way, but at that place were pocket-size things I had taken away from my time in Republic of peru that I wanted to incorporate into my life at abode.
In the big scheme of things, 4 months is a blink of an eye. It is nowhere most the over two-year commitment that Peace Corp volunteers brand or what some other volunteer programs crave. Merely those four months allowed me to pace out of the life I had led for 22 years and gain of import perspective.
The main theme that stood out to me was simplicity. We can get by with then trivial. This does not mean we demand to deny ourselves what brings us joy, only it does hateful that we are obligated to be conscious of what we consume and how the choices we make affect not only ourselves, just the world nosotros share with other humans and other creatures.
The children that welcomed me into their lives. They challenged and inspired me- and also gave me about five hugs a day.
Before I left Peru, I wrote vii things in my journal that I planned to concord myself accountable to equally I jumped back into where I had left off in the U.s.a..
Do what you want!
Do not worry virtually other people because chances are they are as well decorated thinking about themselves to care
When you are happy you make others happy- and then exercise what makes you happy!
Life is besides brusk to practise things out of guilt or feelings of obligation. Only do what is 18-carat and you can give yourself to 100%
Goose egg is easy, zilch is blackness and white.
Celebrate the uniqueness of humanity.
If you brand yourself proud then NEVER repent for who you lot are.
A simply life is a happy life.
This ane is of import. Recollect when you had a backpack full of dress for four months? You lot never needed anything more. Think when you are in Seattle that you do not need annihilation. Identify and organize your wants- what makes yous truly happy?
Be patient! Everything takes fourth dimension.
three month dominion: about all big adjustments accept 3 months- before that it is unfair to make any adjustment or decisions.
Two years afterward, I accept sat downwardly to revisit these observations. Have I held to them as much as I wish? Yep, surprisingly, I have. In that location was no overnight alter when I returned to the Usa, I all the same dearest shopping too much, merely little past little simplicity has come into my life. This is the cardinal, my friends. Nothing happens overnight. It is through time that a little becomes a lot.
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