Self Discovery and Expectations

Over the weekend, my friend and I were talking about what it means to be alone and truly learning about yourself, and in that, getting to the bottom of our actual motivations for dropping everything and moving around the world.  We both agreed that the process of getting to know yourself is very lonely.  Good for the soul, but hard on the heart while it's happening. Over half a bottle of rum was an incendiary force in our four hour conversation, so re-articulating those moments of sheer genius may prove to be a bit challenging. But I will try!

Everyone had their own set of expectations of what this experience would be like, just as everyone had their own individual motives for coming here. On the first day of orientation, our "teacher" sat us all down to talk about what baggage we had brought with us in an attempt to uncover those motives. Why were we here? I kept what I wrote down and I've read it a couple times since then. At the time, I think all of us were "digging deep" and we were being as honest with ourselves as we could be. We talked about tragic breakups, abusive family members, suicide attempts, and so much more. Those of us who didn't share with the group found times in the week to open up to our new "family" about why we thought we had found ourselves in this new alien land. It was hard work, but I think all of us felt like we really did uncover our true motives.

But what my friend and I talked about this weekend is how little we knew, how grossly unaware we were.  If we redid that exercise today, after most of us have been teaching for 4-5 weeks, I believe we would see very different results. True motives don't just jump out at you and say 'hey lady, here I am!'  After all, those motives are windows into our souls; hidden reasons behind every action.  Sometimes understanding those reasons requires a little struggle first. Just as "character cannot be developed in ease and quiet (Helen Keller)," neither can one understand the answers to big questions like 'why am I here' without first experiencing some challenges that shake up their very foundation.  Motives are discovered  by those who are willing to sort through their own bullshit, fess up to the real truth about what it was you were leaving back home, and let yourself be completely and undeniably vulnerable to the reality of it all. 

I feel sometimes like "self-discovery" is this very ethereal concept. Like it's this meticulous process that only produces results when it is followed in strict accordance, one mistake and POOF, it's gone.  It's a crazy concept, and it happens in different ways for everyone, and not at all for more than some.  Sometimes we have those "aha" moments in the middle of a drunken conversation with friends, sometimes we have them when we are alone on a tropical beach reading something akin to Plato or Pirsig. Who knows when it will happen, other than never if you aren't willing to be honest with yourself about what is actually going on inside your heart and your head.

Coming here with any expectations, we were warned, was of no good.  But let's be honest, we all did. We all read about the culture, some more than others, and we all read about other teachers' experiences, again some more than others. From that alone we started to draw a picture in our minds of how the next 5 months of our lives would play out. So a month into the program, when we all get together on weekends, naturally, we all talk about how different the reality of life in Thailand is from that picture we drew for ourselves.  And when you step back and look at which of those expectations disappointed you the most, you can start to see what your true motives may have been for coming here.