While living in a different country, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that the way that I see the world is not inevitable. In other words, it isn’t the way the world has to be seen, or is seen, by many others.
For instance, having been born and raised in the U.S., I had absorbed the idea that I always have to be busy, always doing something. I had four minutes during passing periods in high school to walk to my next class and barely 25 minutes to eat as much of my lunch as I could. I was always working. After school, I had extracurricular activities and homework and studying to do. Everybody around me gave gave me the idea that not working was a waste of time.
Living in Spain, I have realized that this pace of life is not the pace of life in each country, or even of each person living in the same country. Instead, it is something that is unique to the way that I was raised. In Spain, I observed a much different pace of life. In this culture, people value time spent sitting down and conversing with colleagues, strolling down narrow streets with friends, and leaving work at work.
This difference in the pace of life was because of a fundamental difference in perspective. The way I was raised, I viewed not working as a waste of time.
