Germany

While in Germany I learned many valuable things, I learned that there's not only one solution to a problem, there are infinite. I learned to think outside the box, I learned to be resourceful, I learned to ask for help if I needed it. I learned to give and receive. I learned it's ok not to work or study. It's ok to be different. It's ok to be yourself.


And I learned something about myself that would help me understand my thoughts and manage my life a bit better. Regarding time perspective. I realized that my perception of time was totally different from other's. This is no news, we all perceive time on a slightly different way. But in my case it was a bit more than that. 



I realized that one minute for me was like one hour for everyone else, one hour for me it's like one day in everyone else perspective. One day was like one week and the way I perceive a week in my life was similar to the way other people perceive one month in theirs. 


And finally I understood that it was ok, to be that way.


That makes communication difficult sometimes, because if someone asks me, on a thursday, "what are you doing on the weekend?" I would think they are crazy because, from my point of view, the weekend was still lightyears away, so most times i would say that I didn't even know what i'm doing today.


And when they ask me what are you doing next week or next month I always think that i could die today or tomorrow, so somewhere along the way I had I lost the ability to plan ahead. I had lost that pressure that most people have to get things done or sorted out.


Was that good or bad? I found a few years latter it was good, because it was allowing me to live in the moment, enjoy the day while ridding myself of the responsibilities that come along when you try to control or influence the future. 


Most people I met found it a bit difficult to understand that I didn't have any plan, no life goals, no job, no money, no career prospects, and nothing to accomplish whatsoever, I didn't know how long would I stay in germany, i didn't know where I was going after, I didn't know if I would ever go back to argentina, hell, i didn't even know what was going on on the weekend! 


Yet i was hosting many couchsurfers from different countries, getting to spend time with them, I was meeting new people every day, got to hitchhike the way around more than 20 countries, got to learn german somehow, and got to meet people that would be my friends for life. Was having a great time, right here, right now, so I couldn't care less about not being able to answer those questions like "what do you do?" or "how long will you stay in germany?" I was like: who cares? I'm having a great time now! this is real, this is life.



I was lacking something though, it was all too easy and after some years, life in europe had become somehow predictable.


Germany didn't feel like home anymore, I had been roaming around different parts of europe for some months and I had lost myself somewhere along the way. Felt like there was something missing in my life, didn't really know what it was, but knew where to look for it. In Asia.


So in September 15th 2008, found myself on a plane towards Islamabad, but that's for next time.