Working schedule over, usual evening at home..but not for long; ..until you hear a knock on the door.
You open it and see a foreigner, a complete stranger…and guess what, you naturally say: “hi there, just come on in”.
And after that, what? A real adventure, I tell you.
Both sides work on crossing the language barrier, trying and succeeding most of the time, in deciphering the other person, by simply asking and sharing.
It’s a natural process of bonding, learning and acknowledging. Pretty much the exact thing that it is currently being lost – especially in the cities – where people tend to become more indifferent and cold, to the point where minutes in the elevator or in a line, are minutes of embarrassing silence. Only because no one dares to take initiative and start a conversation with “strangers”.
Those strangers could very well be possible best friends, nice acquaintances to have, or just a good way of passing time without losing it completely.
Changing the subject a bit: last week I followed a debate about having or not having Free Will.
And the resulting idea was this: while living in communities, our lives are mostly influenced by others and not by personal decisions. Like a surfer waiting for a mighty wave, we do take some decisions of our own, but afterwords we just go with the flow, until we’re again able to take another big decision.
For example, we stop searching for a job after we get one; and from that point on, years are then decided by managers, colleagues, society and our fear of leaving the comfort zone.
Same for changing the city we’re living in for so long, because we’ll have to leave all of our friends and connections.
Who says we won’t find other good and interesting people, or that we won’t be able to keep in touch with the old ones? Who says there won’t be similar or better opportunities?
Actually.., who says all these? Parents and good friends who are understandably afraid for you; friends or acquaintances that are a bit selfish and don’t want to see you experience more; TV and media which emphasizes on problems rather than opportunities.
Talking about TV, there is one spot currently playing in Romania which sounds like this “There are many reasons to travel the world. We’ll give you 10 strong reasons to stay at home!”.
Gosh, it sounds so wrong, especially because many people are influenced by TV.
Sure there can be difficulties, but those are only things to be aware of and not reasons to “stay at home”.
To conclude, these two seemingly different subjects are actually complementary: one contains the problem, while the other one gives just one of the many possible solutions – for taking the change in our own capable hands.
Enlarging our horizons and meeting new people doesn’t mean we completely get back the free will, but we do increase the chances of receiving new opportunities and having a major change in our lives.
Written by someone just looking through the rabbit whole, still a bit reluctant to take the full plunge :).
