Adam’s Not Here

When I got back I wasn’t too sure about whether or not I should keep up this blog. Without any more travel stories I figured most of what I wrote would be rather boring and self-absorbed. But hey, what are blogs for anyways! So, based on the urging of a friend I won’t name (wait a second….) I suppose I’ll give it another shot. We’ll see if anyone is still checking it at this point.

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Date: 10/22/2006Views: 541

Now that I am back I have managed to reconnect with most of my friends and family from before. I’ve got my standard, How was the Trip? routine down pat at this point. A question that comes up a lot is, Do you think you’ve changed? or something along those lines. And that is something I’d like to take a little time to reflect on now. At the core, I am still the same person as when I left. I think most people will find I am more or less the same old Adam. What I have noticed since returning is that I feel much more confident and focussed. Some of this is simply getting older, to be sure, but there is no doubt in my mind that the trip also played a large part. Over in China you get treated kinda like a Rock Star, everyone else thinks you are so great, it’s a little hard not to believe it after a while. Sometimes this of course has terrible consequences, but it can also just help to deal with lingering self-esteem issues. Compared to the average Chinese person, most foreigners are very well-rounded and capable. This is not meant as a knock on Chinese people, but just as a realization of the considerable education that myself and others have received. Being in China, you don’t take all the stuff you know and can do so much for granted anymore. Both because of education and means, so much of the world that other people can (and do) only dream of is open to us. And when I say us, I mean most of my Canadian friends and family who are reading this, as you are, whether you realize it or not, in the same position. So taking all of this in, I feel that that this realization has given me more focus and ambition. I am painfully aware of my own mortality and I appreciate that we only get one chance to live. I am lucky in that I have come up with a bit of a direction for myself. But regardless of having a direction, I feel that it is important to take advantage of whatever opportunities are out there. You only live once and the reponsibility for squeezing the most out of life rests on no one’s shoulders but your own. We are lucky that our oranges have a lot of juice in them. So get squeezing!