Learning about ourselves

More so than the sights or sounds of our new life to-date, I am learning more about myself. It is the likes, the dislikes, and the personal revelations which have been leaving a more lasting impression. The likes are becoming clearer and the revelations coming with more frequency. It is the dislikes, however, that need the most attention. I have found it fairly easy to call out things that fall under my dislike category; stray dogs, garbage everywhere, run-down buildings, cities, and infrastructure. What I am still working on is why these are dislikes. It would be easy to not dig deeper into these dislikes and just avoid them altogether, however I feel there is something very valuable to be gained from understanding them. I am certainly not there yet, but my hope is that being more conscious about things will allow me to grow and learn.

I wrote that paragraph on a beach in Vina Del Mar, Chile one afternoon and led to a robust discussion between Autumn and me that evening.

One of the biggest revelations we have come to is that above all else we need to make this trip ours. I know that sounds a little strange, however it is a substantial shift in thinking for the two of us. As an example, we have been planning on spending 6 weeks in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam) because we had always heard about how beautiful it is. The revelation that we discovered is that neither one of us had it very high on our bucket list. The fact that it is cheap and supposedly beautiful is interesting, but does not necessarily make it worth forgoing things have been on the top of our bucket lists for a long time. That fact that our time is precious and our resources are as of yet not unlimited makes this revelation all that much more important.

So with all of that said, Autumn and I are reevaluating our post-Christmas itinerary and are very excited about what it could mean. Stay tuned!