Positivity

Being back at where I studied abroad has afforded me somewhat of a unique opportunity for reflection. When I look at Rome and some of the situations I encounter here, it's hard not to think about the person I was four years ago and the person I am now. I often find myself feeling like my students are very young, but in the grand scheme of things, four years isn't so much of an age difference. I've been trying to figure out what exactly has changed in such a short time, and while my immediate response is, "Well, everything has changed," I think I'm able to boil it all down to one word: positivity.

When I was a student here at twenty, I think I was probably pretty difficult to be around. Not that I'm not sometimes now, but I think I was a lot more self-centered and a lot quicker to judge back then. Everything was negative to me. I can think of several specific instances as a student where I would get upset about things just for the sake of doing it. It seemed like the world was crashing down at the tiniest little problem, and I just wasn't ready to handle it. Now, I see similar attributes in some of my students. They're lost, and everything is amplified here. Everything is negative, and drama from home is creeping through the Internet to ruin their day.

Truthfully, I didn't much like myself then. I definitely hurt some people, and I can look back now and think of how foolish I was. I was seeking out the fault in people instead of trying to find the good. I was looking at adverse situations and instead of trying to repair them, I was selling $50 tickets to the pity party, and there weren't many takers. I don't know if it was some sort of defense mechanism, trying not to get hurt by keeping distance from people or something, but I remember very vividly writing people off over the most trivial things. It must've taken a lot of walking on top of a lot of good people to get me all the way up to my high horse.

I'm not saying I'm perfect now, but I'm a whole lot happier, and being back here in Rome sure has made me realize just how much I've changed. I try to find the best in everyone. I try to be as positive as I can, and I have so many great role models of positivity around me and all over the globe. Conversely, my tolerance for drama and negativity is at an all time low. It's just not something I want to be a part of my life. To be honest, Korea had its fair share of really negative situations, and I've done a good job of holding on to the positive growth I encountered there and carrying it here with me. I'm more adept at handling conflict, and I've done a lot of conflict handling in the first few months here while still maintaining my sanity and my positivity. It takes effort to try to remain positive sometimes, but it's the course I want to take, and realizing how fortunate I am to be here doing what I'm doing is often the first step.

I don't know if I'll ever be the type of person who always has a smile on their face. I look up to those people because they're a good reminder for me. There's rarely a good reason to let your day be ruined. I need to work still on ridding myself of complaining. It's so hard sometimes (see what I did there?). I'm not saying it's good to keep real things bottled up, especially not for me, but in the grand scheme of things, most of what I have to complain about is only a complaint because of a lack of positive outlook. For instance, today I realized I have to individually check-in and print 56 tickets for my upcoming study trip to Greece. My instinct was to say, "Really? That sucks so much." As the day went on, I saw a coworker's post about suffering refugees and another friend's post about another mass shooting, and I thought, "Well, I was an asshole earlier. I'm going to Greece for work, and I still found a way to complain." I think it's constant reminders to be positive and put things in perspective that have made me into more of the person I want to be.

This was one of those posts that I think I mostly needed to put into writing for myself. However, serious thanks to anyone who has supported me throughout my life into getting to this exact moment, sitting in a hotel in Rome, typing a blog post, thinking about how lucky I am.

A slightly late thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes. It was spent in Munich at Oktoberfest, and it was a blast. Thanks for reading as always, friends.