When I think about the 2 year journey I must say it has been such a rewarding personal experience. Being in a whole new environment really changes a persons perspective, and it doesn’t get notice till you come back that you realize how much you have changed. You start to see what was normal living before and after the move to a foreign place. The rewarding part of this journey was being able to get grounded and realize what is important to me in this world. When you don’t have a lot of the things you are use to seeing/ doing/ craving you have time to reflect, slow down, let go of things (work load) realize the impermanence of objects, and building relationships.
Realization #1: the rat race
I have done a lot of things on my own and accomplished many goals and bucket items. But I realize that these individual things will keep on piling up or change which makes it never ending to accomplish. If I didn’t become aware of this think of the perpetual cycle that would continue, we could go thru life not knowing and doing what is most important to us. I noticed that the first few years of my career I was doing above and beyond my normal job and would work at nights and weekends. It hit me when I moved to Oman that this is a never ending cycle and I need to put myself first and also do what is most important during the work times and the rest will have to wait. Time management and prioritizing is very important.
Sometimes we need a little clarity to realize the journey…. I took is picture because it reminded me that life is a journey not full of completing tasks.
Realization #2: dreaming
The next big realization is the key to having relationships that will allow you to dream, talk, discuss things other than work. Not only does it open up mind, but it helps get ideas out from the brain storming and into action. My friend and I were talking about ideas in Oman and having a website that shows where restaurants are. As a new comer to Oman I felt the lack there of restaurants having website or even opening hours. I discovered places thru friends, driving around, running thru neighborhoods etc. in my mind this would be a good business because tourism is going to be a major growth for Oman in the coming years. People need to eat and they want to try local food. This was the first time I have ever thought about starting my own business and becoming an entrepreneur. This is when I realized the ability to think more horizontally instead of vertically. Growing and expanding the knowledge to unknown areas brings a whole new excitement level. Knowing that an idea could help others and be profitable at the same time sounds great. This is when I started to take more time for myself to reflect and dream of possibilities. Sometimes I feel like I am in a hamster wheel churning away and yet I don’t even know what direction I am going. If I didn’t come to oman I may have still been in that wheel.
Realization #3: meditation
The power of meditation has brought a whole new light to my life. I always thought it was a religious ritual but it is universal and more of a technique to purify the mind, kind of like yoga. Like in ashtanga yoga, you are focused on breathing and doing the movements in a nice flow sequence. You are in the moment, and dedicating the practice to something (at least I am). The biggest impact that I realized is the mind calmness after a yoga practice and meditation retreats. You become more aware of your body, reactions, emotions and surroundings. It really puts into perspective how much our lives are consumed with other desire like internet, materialistic things, phones, wealth etc. we are living for the future based on an assumed timeline that may or may not be there. We are all here on borrowed time. So when I think about the last two sentences, it made me think about why am I so consumed with saving for retirement, making money, work, etc because at the end if the day we have a finite life and it is up to us to decide how and who we want to spend it with. The family is very important because they will always be there for you when you need and we have spent most of our lives together. Family is a value and it can be taken in a couple different ways. Of course there is my family, but it can also mean a sense of community or group with common interests. Like in Oman, majority of my co workers became like family even though most of our interactions were at work. I think without realizing it, I have the skills to bring people together and build a community.
Realization #4: understanding thy self
In oct 2013 me and my best friend decided to take on a life coach. What was planned to have a business coach because we had an idea and did not know how to start turned into life coaching sessions. One of the biggest faults a person can make about starting a business is starting something you are not passionate about. When times are tough, passion is what gets you thru because you live and die by it. I went on this journey to start from the inner core to understand myself before taking ideas into a business. Let’s face it, we all have business’s ideas but how many do we really act on and which one do you choose. When you know yourself (values and goals) then it become easier to say yes and no to the ideas. Passion is something unique to a person and I believe it is the fire inside that ignites the goodness of a person. When you are doing your passion, you hit your core values and this is the unstoppable element that cannot be taught in a MBA program. Finding your core values first and then find out how to live them. My core values are:
1) family 2) fun 3) inspire. The key is to narrow it down to the top 3 and live those because there are hundreds of values (prioritize).
Realization #5: helping others
After traveling to many countries and seeing how others live, you can really feel and see how lucky we really are to live in North America. The things we would consider a waste could be a luxury to someone else (a glass of water, clothes to keep warm, shoes etc). At my work we were saving bottle caps because they can be salvaged for money and the organization would take collect bottle caps and use the revenue to buy wheel chairs for the disabled. Sometimes I think we are so fixed on consuming things that we forget that there is a greater purpose for us. It is kind of ironic that marketers call us consumers. If you think about it our economy and lively hood relies on our demand to consume things. But imagine what life would be like if we didn’t have all these consumable things, maybe we wouldn’t face a shortage on resources, psychological, relationship issues. My uncle told me that as you get older you begin to understand what is really important in life. I guess that is what they call maturing… Hahaha when we finish college we thrive on being independent, exploring ourself and the world. But at some point we need to narrow the focus and truly live the way we want. This is where I am at in my stage of life, and doing good is an area I want to focus on.
Realization #6: sense of community
I did realize the power of having a community until I came to oman. The feeling of having “family” when working abroad helps big time and it is a reminder of how good people really are. When you do things together there are no judgements just fun, laugh, eating, activities etc. I believe the expats are this way is because they are the type of people that can handle expat assignments. At times there may be feelings of loneliness but the community is there. As a community, I had my coworkers, salsa friends, Latin families, and friends to keep my family spirit alive. These people are true friends who are always willing to be there when you need and vice versa. This is something I never really established in the us when I was here, probably because I was too busy in the rat race.
Kwong Adventure 