It is summer and we are travelling

It is summer and we are travelling, experiencing other cultures and other landscapes. Whether your destination is far away or just nearby, you will find circumstances and traditions that are different from yours at home. Sometimes it is easy to accommodate and other times more difficult.

I am just on the way back home from a short vacation, a trip to a foreign land, with a language barrier and different traditions. Maybe it is a matter of age, but what I really appreciate when I see it is when people conserve their land and their heritage. I believe it requires a deep connection with your land and pride for what you have and who you are. First of all, it needs gratitude for what you have, otherwise you do not cherish it enough to preserve it. Exactly that is what I observed at every corner during my short journey.

I arrived in Romania 34 years ago as a guest and am proud to call this wonderful country my home now. I might not become Romanian, but I love the land and I love the wisdom of old that I found here. Many Romanians do not yet love and value their land enough to preserve their heritage for their children. I do hope from all my heart that this changes fast.

Just to make sure I expressed myself clear, I am not talking nationalism here, there are no politics involved. What I am talking about is gratitude for what you have, where you are born and the desire to keep it for the generations to come. Plant a tree today that will be harvested in 100 years, much beyond your life time! Make sure that animals have their habitat for your children’s children to still see them in the wild. Feel connected with all that is around you. We are of earth and we are star beings!

I am reflecting on travelling because this so enriches my awareness of the complexity of life and of the simplicity of life at the same time. We can see what differentiates us and we can feel all as one. We can see the flaws, the missing parts, the ugliness, and we can concentrate on the beauty, the completeness and the wonders of life in other regions of earth. From ugliness to beauty is often a very small step or a tiny change of perspective. It is up to you what you focus on, at home or abroad, inside you or outside you. Only you can change the perspective, nobody can do this for you.

Why not give it a try and see:

the full glass

 the beauty of a place

 the good in people

 what goes right

 what makes you happy

 what you have got

the strength in overcoming any obstacle

It does not cost anything and it might have such a beautiful influence on your wellbeing. You will attract people that see life the same way. You will not want to be with people anymore that are negative and complaining and even if you are, you will be able to change their perspective as well.

Instead of sitting with your group of friends and complaining about the weather, the government, the prices and the circumstances that obstruct you from being happy, you sit down and dream a new dream together, brain-storm a new life together, come up with a plan to make more money or more time to spend together in having fun. Use your mind to be positive and your body to install the new way of being happy and healthy. Make this a habit when you are with your friends. You cannot change the thinking of other people but you can change your own guiding principles, your own thinking and believe me this is very contagious. More contagious even than complaining is.

So, the next time you travel to a foreign society, try to see only the interesting part, the positive part, what you can learn from this new experience and add it on to your own wellbeing.

Travelling is one of the most enjoyable ways of spending time in a classroom. I love travelling so much, I will do it until I really cannot anymore. Until then – to infinity and beyond!