Welp, six years of middle and high school French probably didn’t prepare me for this. In an effort to be mystical and romantic I tried to tell a friend in French that while in Senegal I hope to be embraced by the baobabs- as a metaphor for being welcomed into the community- but instead only achieved displaying my incompetencies in French, and an odd relationship dynamic with trees.
I started keeping a journal in July in order to document my journey, and this slightly embarrassing, yet inspiring, incident caused me to make a list of my fears in one of my journal entries. I wrote:
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Right now as I write I am a mixture of excited, scared, and worried. My fears come from my worries. I’m worried that:
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However, rather than stay negative, I also wrote a list of the things I am excited for. I wrote:
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I’m excited that:
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In making these two lists I realized that, though my fear list was shorter, I wrote my fears without any words of uncertainty such as ‘hopefully’, but used words of uncertainty with my list of things I’m excited for. So without having even left for pre-departure training yet, I have already gained two lessons from my upcoming journey:
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Stay positive. Don’t perceive your fears as if you know they will happen, but your excitements as if they only might happen. No one knows the future, so why not hope for the best. Negative thoughts only cause anxiety, but positive thoughts cause us to work harder in order to make those positive things happen, and make the world seem just that much better.
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You’re going to fail sometimes, maybe even make a fool of yourself, but once you learn not to take yourself so seriously, and can laugh things off, you’ll be just fine. And at risk of sounding like a cliché Taylor Swift song- shake it off; dust yourself off and keep going. If you let a little hiccup make you lose sight of what you want to achieve, then you’re only holding yourself back. There’s no situation more embarrassing than looking back at a life of regrets, and having to admit to yourself that you’re the only reason why.
As per today (August 17, 2017) I have a little over a week (10 days) till I leave for pre-departure training, and I hope my fears and excitements carry me through even more life lessons as I place myself outside of my comfort zone- not just in location, but in thoughts and my way of life.
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
-Henry Miller
