Change

Back at University, on my journey to work I used to walk 20 minutes down dual carriage way with the view of green fields and a cathedral. Today, I walk down a dual carriage way with the view of sky high buildings standing powerfully next to favelas. It’s amazing how much can change in your life, how much you can take for granted and how quickly time passes.

In my two months in Brazil, I have changed and grown more than I ever anticipated. Most things in my life have changed, but that’s because I have changed. In my last post, I said that I came to Brazil to test my capabilities and that’s exactly what has happened and continues to happen. But something greater and more beautiful has happened in this journey; in Brazil I have had an introduction to reality.

I never wanted to believe that people are mean. Call me naïve, and perhaps for my own sanity, I wanted to believe that everyone wanted what’s best for everyone. Now, I see the world differently.

It isn’t that people are evil and are out there to hurt you, but the world is savage. People are savage. As I commute to and back from work, I see how desperate people are to get on a train. How everyone becomes an animal, jumping over each other to get on that train – as if it’s the last one in the world. We quickly forget to stop and look around, to see what those around us need. We forget to look at the child in front of us, the vulnerable adult or the aged person and to see what they need. We are too focused on what we need. We are ignorant.

As I walk down the dual-carriage to work, and I see the $1,000,000,000 flat on sale standing next to the house that doesn’t even have basic facilities. I stop. I ask myself: “If I had all that money, what would I do? Am I all that different?”

It’s easy to forget about the world we live in and to become caught up in our own lives. It’s too easy to focus on what we don’t have rather than focus on what we have. It’s much easier to complain than to be grateful.

So, how have I changed?

I’ve realized that everything in life is a blessing. That life in itself is a blessing, and that the very fact that I can breathe and live already makes me a blessed being.I've changed not by becoming selfless and giving up my own dreams and desires, but by acknolweding the person next to me.