Though you can learn foreign languages quite well right in your home country using free online tools like Skype, YouTube, language exchange sites, podcasts, etc., none of these are a substitute for the transformational power of living, learning, and working abroad. Neither is short-term international travel. To get the life-changing effects (“Who the hell am I anyway and what do I really want to do with my life?!”), the minimum effective dose seems to be about 6 to 12 months neck deep in a new land.
But I realize that not everyone can just pick up and move to a new country, so I’ve put together some life lessons I’ve gleaned over the past 33 years living on the planet earth, especially the last decade living as a “stranger in a strange land” in Japan, Bangladesh, and Taiwan. I hope they offer you some vicarious expat wisdom, and more importantly, impetus to move abroad yourself.
I originally posted this as one über long post, but decided to break it up into bite-size chunks (thank you for the suggestion Content Club peeps):
- Happiness is a Choice
- True Happiness Only Exists in the Present Moment
- Rule Your Mind or It Will Rule You
- Wherever You Go, There You Are
- Don’t Confuse Your Options With Your Choices
- No Amount of Having or Doing Can Create a Lasting Sense of Being
- Mindful, Love-Filled Action Changes the World, Not Prayer
- Ignorance & Arrogance is the Most Dangerous Combination
- Myths are Powerful Devices, But Devices Nonetheless
- Religion and Science Can Both Be Twisted to Serve Any Purpose
- “Consensus” is Not the Same Thing as “Truth”
- Walk The Line Between Perseverance & Acceptance
- Have Low Expectations
- Most Things Make No Difference; Focus Only on What Does
- There is Enough Time to Do What Really Matters
- There’s No Replacement for Motivation & Discipline
- Use Daily Routines, Rituals & Habits to Maximize Creative Output
- Perfectionism is the Enemy of Productivity & True Happiness
- Take Life “Bird by Bird” and “Brick by Brick”
- Learning How to Learn is Life’s Most Important Skill
- There is a Huge Difference Between “Studying” and “Learning”
- Wisdom = Knowledge + Experience
- Measure What Matters; Ignore the Rest
- Respecting a Culture Does Not Mean Liking or Agreeing With Every Part of It
- Foreign Languages Open Doors You Didn’t Even Know Were There
- Non-Standard Language is Not the Same as Sub-Standard
- Every Act of Communication is an Act of Translation
- Proper Nutrition & Exercise Are Force Multipliers for Everything You Do
- Money Can’t Buy Happiness, But It Can Help Make the Down Payment
- It’s Never Worth Sacrificing Your Health or Happiness for Pay
- Put On Your Oxygen Mask First
- Question Everything
- Don’t Save the Best for Last
Note: This post was inspired by inspirational articles from two different Benny’s: Benny the Irish Polyglot’s post 29 life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight and Benny Hsu’s 34 Life Lessons I’ve Learned in 34 years of Living. Both are great fellas making a living doing what they love and I highly recommend their blogs.
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When I first watched The Power of Myth at the age of 12 (what can I say, I have a cool mom), most of Joseph Campbell’s truth bombs about life, death, and purpose flew right over my little noggin. But as I’ve grown older, experienced difficult life trials, and been presented with ever more responsibilities and social expectations, his advice to “follow your bliss” has become increasingly powerful. Like everyone, I’ve made the mistake of getting caught up in jobs, relationships, and habits that don’t benefit myself or the world, but thanks to Joe’s advice, I’ve always managed to snap myself out of unfulfilling cycles and get back on track by asking myself, “Are you following your bliss or just doing what’s easy and expected of you?”
“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” ~Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
Whatever it is you truly want to do in life—whether it’s starting a new language, quitting a high paying job to do something more fulfilling, or leaving a destructive relationship—do it today. Don’t wait for the right time and don’t wait for permission; both will never come. Yes, you might piss some people off. Some people will be let down. But those that really matter will respect you for having the guts to follow your bliss and do what you’re on this earth to do.
Set aside some time everyday to do the things that really matter to you and have the greatest impact on your health, happiness, family, friends, and community. If you truly don’t have time, create it through prioritizing what really matters (see 14) Most Things Make No Difference; Focus Only on What Does).
Next: 2) True Happiness Only Exists in the Present Moment Return to the List
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Following one’s bliss sounds great on paper, but very few of us ever experience “it” for more than a few fleeting moments before our minds rush in to spoil the spiritual party.
But therein lies a hint to why it’s so hard to capture bliss, fulfillment, happiness, peace, transcendence, enlightenment, or whatever you want to call it: this state of consciousness can only be experienced, not thought.
And equally important, this state can only be experienced right now, not at some point in the future.
Dark Helmet: “When will then be now?”
Colonel Sandurz: “Soon.”
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The problem is that experiencing the “now”—and through it, true happiness—is impossible when you are under the control of the ego, and almost all of us are, almost all of the time. The word “ego” here refers not to “confidence” or “thinking you are better than others” but what Eckhart Tolle defines in The Power of Now as “a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning” or “a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind”. He goes on to describe the workings of this tricky little SOB:
“To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. The total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it — who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It says: ‘One day, when this, that, or the other happens, I am going to be okay, happy, at peace.’ Even when the ego seems to be concerned with the present, it is not the present that it sees: It misperceives it completely because it looks at it through the eyes of the past. Or it reduces the present to a means to an end, an end that always lies in the mind-projected future. Observe your mind and you’ll see that this is how it works. The present moment holds the key to liberation. But you cannot find the present moment as long as you are your mind.”
Nick Nolte’s Socrates character explains this well in The Peaceful Warrior:
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“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance. The wise grows it under his feet.” ~James Oppenheim
In addition to foolishly seeking happiness in a future it can never experience, the ego also searches for it in an elusive there it can never find. It doesn’t understand that happiness can be experienced anywhere, anytime, no matter where you are, what you’re doing, or who you’re with. When one is controlled by the go, you can cover the entire globe and never find the fountain of bliss. Bliss requires a change of consciousness, not zip code.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t travel. You absolutely should. But do so for the joy of traveling itself, not a foolish attempt to run away from one’s ego-driven problems. Trust me, I’ve tried. Once the excitement and jet lag wear off, your demons will be right there where you left them: inside you.
And I am not saying that environment doesn’t matter. While you certainly can find and practice joy in rush hour traffic, it’s a lot easier on a remote mountaintop in Taiwan. Stack life’s deck in your favor by carefully choosing where you spend your time and who you spend it with, but at any given moment, know that you can experience bliss right here, right now.
Next: 5) Don’t Confuse Your Options With Your Choices Return to the List
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Whenever we find ourselves stuck in a rut, feeling bad about life and our place in it, the first human instinct is to blame our woes on other people and external conditions. We feel imprisoned, believing we can’t be elsewhere or do otherwise. In reality, there are almost always myriad choices about what to do in any given moment if we are in the proper frame of mind to see them, with many paths out of our personally created—or at least maintained—hell. But even when choices truly are slim and the external reality truly grim, we always have a choice about how we respond. We always have a choice about what state of consciousness we bring into this world.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
“Whatever you cannot enjoy doing, you can at least accept that this is what you have to do. Acceptance means: For now, this is what this situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do it willingly… If you can neither enjoy nor bring acceptance to what you do—stop. Otherwise, you are not taking responsibility for the only thing you can really take responsibility for, which also happens to be the one thing that really matters: your state of consciousness. And if you are not taking responsibility for your state of consciousness, you are not taking responsibility for life.” ~Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
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