so often the worst things that happen to you in this life....given some time can come to be seen as the best things. Maybe the best is not the correct wording? but what i'm getting at is ... even the traumatic events that happen to a person can eventually be seen to have taken that persons life in a direction that it would not have otherwise ended up.
Overcoming these challenges make us who we are...and often make us better, stronger, more resilient, more empathetic.
So to take this into the tangible...i'll explain it in terms of my story. At 18 i was accepted into an exchange program and was headed off to live in poland for a year. i stopped in to England on the way to my exchange to visit with family i have up in Newcastle. While there my cousin and i were in a serious car accident. I fracture 4 vertebra, broke my leg and lost some teeth. Not fun... 3 spinal surgeries and months of recovery....i found myself a 20 year old trying to figure out who this new injured me was.
This is not a pity party...in fact while it was a lot of suffering, then through to now....i would never have it any other way. I was so lucky to have had this happen to me. It made me aware of how fragile our life is....it made me realize that we get just this one life and we must actually live it. I am now 40 and i have been to 39 countries....(i started playing this game about 10 years ago that i wanted to always to have been to as many countries as my age)
I would never have been so obsessed with going, doing, meeting, sharing and knowing so many places and cultures.
Without the traumatic car accident i think i would probs be watching a football game and not looking forward to going to my 9-5 job the next morning. Instead i was no longer afraid of what life was going to throw at me... i eagerly went toward all that life had to throw at me.
When something shitty happens to us in this life...we must go through the stages of dealing with it...pain, self pity, recovery, sadness...but after some time and space....we need to see the opportunity in this shitty thing. We need to find all the learning, all the ways it has shaped and served us.... and to go through all the doors and potential that open up. For me....there is really only 2 ways to go with these life smacks that hit us all in so many different ways .... we can dwell, be bitter, dwindle and shrink within our existence or we can overcome and become grateful, find meaning, find the path to break through and grow within our existence.
This is how i have come to a place where i realize that i Suffer so Lucky.
Thank you for this! This is a very personal story - I feel like I have seen a piece of you - like maybe I know you better now than more than half of my 'facebook friends'
I got 'stuck' in Colombia! Looking to get to another country soon, but I have no rush to have a big number necessarily - as long as I get those sweet sweet experiences ;p
Please feel free to swing by Colombia - if I am not mistaken there is a loose plan for a central american journey sometime in the next decade - I just might swing through you neck of the woods c:
yeah i know that facebook void feeling. i didnt realize you were based down in colombia. I love colombia...have been several times. huge fan of santa marta and parque national tyrona. spent a lot of time there in 2005.
where are you based?
yeah..the country age thing happened by accident... i saw that at 23 i was nearly bang on...and since then said yeah...im gonna visit as many countries as i am years old. has gotten trickier as older...now i have 2 kids and a wife...so country hoping is hard on the wallet.
Oh my beloved friend Butt!
It seems the steemit mojo has conspired against me reaponding to this comment! The bountiful wit in my previous attempts at response cannot now be replicated in my early morning state.
We are in the 'middle' of the central mountaian range, Líbano, Tolima is where we call home.
i dont know if i fully understand you...but thanks for taking the time to respond. what is the deal with @ecoinstante i received an upvote to my comment from both you and this mimic with and e at end. Is that you. Strange. wishing you well.
Me both times! @ecoinstante is my wife's account, she doesnt take full advantage of her upvotes and she is logged in on our tablet so I occasionally 'help her out'.
I had responded before, something witty and delicious like - 'no one will punish you if you are up or down 1 or 2' - but way wittier. I only noticed this morning that it seems that comment didnt actually post.
nice the wife double tap. yes...always a pisser when a crafted message pulls an MIA
One other thought, instead of creating a double notification by calling someone by their full username,
ie @buttcoins, I often fabricate a name for them beased on my interpretation of their user name. With you...well....hence 'my dear Butt'
That's amazing!! I actually left the country for the first time last year and loved it! It made me want to go and experience the outside world even more. Have plans to go do that in the near future. Anyway, only one more country to go for you to reach your goal. Anywhere special in mind or is that for the one after???
thanks man. yeah...i did several trips through europe way back when...but i missed spain and portugal...so this winter im going to visit there...and might pop over on a ferry to Morocco from southern spain...so that would be 3 more and would buy me a couple years time before i figure new destinations. i have 2 kids now...so my mobility has decreased.
if you ever take a vacation to central america...hit me up. i live in guatemala....at Lake Atitlan. it is a sweet spot to visit.
Wow!! How fun and exciting. The place I went to was Costa Rica so I'm somewhat familiar with the area. Have to remember to change currencies next time though since I found out they like to make up exchange rates. Hahah but yes! Next time I'm there I will definitely hit you up and you can show me the way it's truly done.
Im sure you would not take the market rate if someone wanted to pay you in pesos - since actually converting them takes work and time ;p
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