Enlightenment

Ever since arriving and even before we got here, I have felt like this whole experience was meant to happen to me. The past couple of days have made me feel this way even more. The group of people I am here with, including the professors, and the people we have met so far are really great and there is such a great energy going on between all of us. I don’t know how things will unravel in our time here but I believe that no matter what, across whatever misunderstandings or issues that might come up, we will work through them and become closer by the end. Being in an unfamiliar setting with new people makes me more introspective in general which is something I think I really needed at this point in my life. So much happens at college and when I’m caught up in the fast pace of college and city life and its nice to slow down, step back, and be alone in a new environment to see how I react. It helps me get back in touch with myself and what really matters to me, as I talked a little bit about in a previous post. Being out in the jungle furthered that feeling and being on the beach yesterday was a cleansing experience and today we all went through what felt like some sort of enlightening or at least a spiritual experience in which we looked in upon ourselves.
Sunity Best, who I introduced as our program manager, is more like a resource, mentor, and teacher. She welcomed us into her home that day to cook with her and to open up to us about her life. Today, in class, she helped us open up to ourselves. We had a session called Feeling Human in which she talked to us about looking in on ourselves and asking the question, “Who am I?” and to find out that answer before you end up in a midlife crisis wondering why you made decisions that didn’t lead to your own happiness. She talked about identifying others as fellow human beings and focusing on our similarities instead of superficial differences and from there to turn the spotlight on yourself and find out who you are and what makes you different. She then talked about owning your decisions and owning your life, not living for other people. We all have voices in our heads telling us what we should do and what is right and we need to either listen to those voices and make them our own or find our voice in the crowd and follow it. One thing she said which I loved was, “A problem won’t kill you, it’s what makes life interesting. Give me a problem, I’ve never seen one I didn’t like.” And her point was that in life its not about what happens to you and hoping that bad things don’t happen to you because good and bad things happen to everyone. Its all about how you choose to deal with it. She also talked about how you should give yourself permission to happiness and to invest in your passions because if you follow your passions and make an investment in them, you will be happy and they will pay off. I can’t possibly write everything that she brought up and made us think about because it was overwhelming in its scope and depth, but it was a powerful experience. I felt like even though she was talking to the whole group, she was talking directly to me because everything hit so close to how I have been feeling recently. After talking about it with the whole group, everyone felt the same way and hearing people talk about their reactions and experiences that led to those reactions brought all of us closer. After her talk I have such a positive outlook on this trip and other experiences that will help me start to figure out the answer to Sunity’s question. And now let me ask you: Who are you?