Every single day is riddled with choices - what to eat, who to spend (or waste) your time with, where to call your home, and on and on, ad infinitum (now that I've added a touch of Latin you may think I'm a douchey pseudo-intellectual and stop reading - yet another choice!). Some are the best choices we've ever made, and some are the most regretted. My life choices have been of severe debate amongst all of my acquaintance, and unfortunately I'm not even sure yet whether they're good. But I can tell you that I've never regretted the choice to be happy. Because to my surprise, happiness is a choice, not a gift from God, not something formulated by putting together the magical recipe that bakes into your happiness, but something you have to work for, and that you have to focus on. Who knew?!
Living abroad, however, is a choice overflowing with challenges, most generally ridiculous and unforeseeable. Going to the hardware store suddenly becomes an adventure, and talking to your co-workers is an absolute impossibility. In cases such as these, to paraphrase Jane Austen, a bad attitude is impardonable. And it is a lesson I need to learn, every damn day, and only the hard way.
When I tell people in my home city how I live my life, and especially where, the first response is assuredly "OH, I could never do that", spoken in a low whisper of fear and almost horror at the thought of how difficult it would have to be. Of course there have been difficulties, but I worked through them, one step at at time. What I consistently find interesting is that for me, it would be horrible to stay where I was, and to just be another part of what I call the Minnesota Machine. Make decent friends, get a decent job, have a decent amount of fun, marry a decent person, have very decent children, get a decent house, and have a decent life. I looked upon my future there, and found that "decent" was all I was going to get out of it. I know wonderful people who have been very happy living their lives there - and feel that they are more than decent. I rejoice in their happiness, and would never try to change them. But I wanted more - I wanted something different. And to stay where I was would have been robbing myself of the full life that I fully expect of myself.
As many of you already know, and some of you could probably suspect, if you know me that is, I have been going through an existential crisis for many weeks now. I get up, I go to work, I see my friends, I have my fun, but all the while, underneath all the bravado (of which I have perhaps too much), I am wondering what the hell it is all for. Why am I here? Why do anything? Why do nothing? What is the purpose of the universe, and what is my purpose in it? Can I even contribute anything at all of value? Does anyone at all really benefit from my contribution to the world in a way that no one else could provide? I currently teach at a preschool, and I think I do a reasonably good job, but there are I'm sure many others who could, and do, a much better job than I ever could. I feel myself floating in a world without a purpose or direction, and I'm not sure what to make of it.
Is there any solution out there? As of yet: unknown.
The existential crisis continues!
