March | 2014 | pennylaneonaplane

After living in a “developing” country, you begin to notice things (problems/circumstances, etc) that aren’t existent in your home country. For example, when I log onto Facebook, my news feed is filled with statuses where people are complaining about this or that, “ranting”, whatever. Complaining isn’t a bad thing. I mean, I complain about a lot of shit. However, there IS a difference between complaining about something and complaining just to complain. As a a matter of fact, you could say that I’m complaining about people complaining. I sense that the majority of people don’t even notice when they are complaining; it’s almost like second nature to them.

One thing that I’ve gained from this experience is gratitude. We wake up in the morning, rushed and annoyed..usually setting the scene for a negative mood to follow for the rest of the day. If I were back in Austin, I’d be at a standstill on I-35 cursing my life. Here in SE Asia I’ve seen people who struggle with things that people in the West would shit themselves over.

To be continued.