Takeaways from South America

Two months gone by in South America. It's hard to believe.

Tomorrow I leave the continent for the less-warm pastures of Europe for the next two months of the journey. It's unbelievable to think this trip is already one third over. But hot damn have I learned a great deal about traveling, the cultures I've had the privilege to experience and myself. In this post I'll share some of my biggest takeaways and aim to share why this first segment of the journey has been so powerful. Oh, also, Merry Christmas!

Diversity is a Beautiful Thing

Every day of travel, I'm blown away by how many people there are in this world, how many perspectives exist and how many different ways a life can be lived. Every unique organism contributes their own energy which shapes their experience and influences everything around them. This lofty sociological/spiritual lens gets refocused and retooled every day and continues to blow my mind in all the right ways.

Humans are these walking strokes of paint that can glow red with anger, blue with misery, orange with energy, purple with passion, yellow with hunger, pink with possibility and thousands more colors representing thousands more emotions at any moment. All of these strokes can be smeared together in an exponentially large number of ways. And the brushes that paint these strokes - family, work, culture, upbringing, expectation, customs - vary from place to place and from person to person. And while we oftentimes reduce other people to the lowest common denominator of relation or disposition in order to comprehend more efficiently, every once in awhile we need to be reminded that every one of us is the way we are for a reason and, within the limits of our own realities, can change shapes and colors in an endless number of ways each and every day.

Sure it would be easier to live in a world in which every person and emotion fell into a nice little box with a proper shape and size. But the more of the world I see, the more I realize that humans are perfectly messy creatures that refuse to be contained and whose beauty can only be experienced by realizing their potential rather and embracing their diversity. And although the differences that make us who we are make the world more complicated, it's these differences that make the world more colorful.

You Have to Cut Yourself Some Slack

There have been a countless number of times in the past two months where I've beaten myself up. It happens often when I make a choice and then realize soon after there was a better choice I could have made. This most often happens with monetary expenditures - I'll buy food then realize there was a cheaper option that would have been better, I buy a gift then realize there's the same object for half the price next door, I only have one day left in the country and I run out of cash but still have to pay for some items in cash so I have to withdraw money and take the hit of the foreign client withdrawal fees. Money aside, I'll beat myself up for taking the wrong mode of transport to a destination, I'll beat myself up for failing to use the proper Spanish word I know I knew but didn't realize I knew it until after the conversation ended. I'll beat myself up for not being more social on Christmas Eve when I know it would have made me less homesick and sad. These are just some of the ways in which I've beaten myself up.

I've also been beaten up. I've encountered natives that stare at me with a look of utter contempt as soon as I set foot in a building. I've had employees in grocery stores and cafes give me zero lenience with the language barrier and when I don't understand something they say, they'll just repeat the same three words I don't understand louder and more slowly, which doesn't help anybody. I've had tons of people laugh at me for looking stupid while I attempt something that to them is so simple, like taking a number at the deli or paying the proper bus fare.

In the first month, when any of the aforementioned unpleasantries would befall me, my instinct would be combative - either indignation at myself for my foolishness or contempt for the other for their lack of grace. But after the first month of my travels, I began to learn something incredibly important - this shit happens. It happens everyday and will continue to happen. I am an outsider in a foreign country trying desperately to learn the proper modes of conduct. There are SO many variables that are outside of my control. But there are some variables that are under my control. I can be more patient with myself. I can have more grace with myself. I can forgive myself. And I can just simply cut myself some slack and move on instead of dwelling on my mistakes.

In relation to the other, again I can control some variables. When I accidentally call the wrong floor in the elevator because I think the ground floor is the first floor and it's actually a floor below that and there's that awkward moment where the door opens on the first floor and everyone stares at me because I don't get out, I can at that moment laugh. I can at that moment shrug. I can at that moment apologize and make a silly face. While others will continue to judge me, I can at least attempt to show them that I'm aware of my own shortcomings and that I'm working on it.

While the above paragraphs could read as a diatribe, I don't mean them to be. I also don't want them to be interpreted as complaints. I try to keep this blog insightful and positive where possible. But this is probably the realest issue I've faced and one that I must continue to work on over the next several months of travel. And I think we could all use the reminder that, despite the different circumstances, we all need to have grace with ourselves, we need to be patient with ourselves and we need to remember that we are humans that never have the full picture and always make mistakes. And that is okay.

Keep An Open Mind

I think more often than not, we get in our own way more than other people get in ours. Expectations, fears, inhibitions, routines, norms - they all dictate our behavior and limit our perceived scope of possibility. We exist inside systems that largely dictate our behavior and the lens with which we perceive the world. We will build up ideas in our own heads of the way things should be and generate expectations for ourselves and others that oftentimes keep us from fulfillment.

When you're thrown into a world where everything - the people, the places, the food, the norms - are radically different from what you're used to, there are two ways people react.

The first way is you cling to what you know and what you think is "right" based on your background and confront the world keeping those ideals in tact. You filter anything that comes your way with an immovable bias and your provincial outlook on life means you miss so much. While the genuineness of this approach is somewhat admirable in spirit, this way of going is futile and results in more conflict than harmony.

The second way is you realize you have a specific background, which means you will automatically perceive the world from a certain perspective. Keeping that in mind, you realize your way of living is but one in a billion and through opening your mind to new possibilities, you feel more fully, are affected more intensely and are moved more quickly. Your pursuit then is not validating your own worldview but understanding where your worldview fits in to the larger picture and, much like an art collector, investing in pieces that represent your journey, amassing a collection that speaks to where you've been and who you've become. This approach strives for enlightenment and through lessening the presence of the self, keep us more in tune with the world.

Needless to say, my goal on this journey is to lead with the latter approach. While by no means perfect, every day I feel myself getting better at opening up, allowing vulnerability, questioning my own reality and experiencing life more fully. It's been messy but all great things in life are.

I trust Europe and, after that, Southeast Asia will both continue to kick my ass and mess with my perspective. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Onward ho!