It will be 3 months in the upcoming days since I live in Thailand as an exchange student. Just to put events into context.
I don’t want to write about the virus itself, the infections, the regulations now. That’s why the people of the interweb are. Everyone has an opinion about it and many are willing to share it with others. What is indisputable, however, is that because of that, I went into exile in my room, I had more time to delve into my thoughts. I approach the subject of the virus a little differently. The past period has been full of experiences and changes that I need to process. I have chosen out a couple of lessons that I’ve learned and I’m more than happy to share it with you too. I feel like they’re adding a lot to my everyday life right now. I haven’t figured out the legend of the Holy Grail, but maybe others can benefit from the experiences below. I’m forever grateful for those thai people who helped me get these experiences and relevations so I can learn from them.
Patience
I would like to tell you a story that has perhaps had the greatest impact on me in this area.
It was obvious in the first week that, compared to Thai people, I’m the nervous type who’s in a hurry all the time. The kind of mentality I brought from home makes me aggressive and impatient in their eyes. By my own standards, I am none of those.
I spent nearly 12 hours with some friends at the local Immigration Bureau the other day. We went to extend our visa and, as it turned out, we managed to select the busiest day in the recent period. We arrived early in the morning, before opening. I was given the number 1185, which, thanks to my good Hungarian virtue, made me think about the ancestors of that paper for quite a long time.
Time passed, I was getting more and more impatient. We’re adults, we can handle a few hours, but a few hours for me is 2-3. After that, it is getting harder for me to handle the situation as well as I’d like to.
Where patience comes in and the realization, how much I had to and have to learn from the locals in this area (too): we are an hour after closing time and, well, lots of people ahead of me in line. There is only one person on his feet in the countryside: me. Everyone else can sit quietly on his butt and wait for the display to show the long-awaited number. (All my respect to those who work there. They kept stamping people’s passports from morning to night) The people who were waiting were fully cultured, PATIENTLY waiting for their turn and when I my number appeared on the screen, I could only react to the events with a discreet cheer.
What did I learn from this?
Even if it may be clear to most of us: Being impatient and pushing things to happen does not necessarily lead to results. The bus doesn’t come sooner, the line at the store doesn’t move faster and our passport doesn’t get stamped sooner. Waiting is crap. Unfortunately, I can’t get the gist easier than that. No one likes to wait. Patience, on the other hand, is a virtue that I, and perhaps those who read this, need, and the people here set a very good example in this.
Slow down
Whether this is due to the neighborhood I live in Bangkok (meaning I don’t live in the business district where the usual attitude is probably different) or it is again a kind of cultural difference, I don’t know. In any case, the second lesson that the locals helped me with, is: It’s not productive to have my calendar filled up all day and if I push myself, no matter the quality of the results all day. It is the exact opposite: counterproductive.
We all love to be busy, or at least feel that we are busy. I really do, if I were to say the opposite, I’d be lying. Different programs, meetings, tasks. And we are not there fully, we can’t focus on that specific thing or person.
I’ve changed that too. I’ve been working on different techniques for a long time, but now: it is time to make a real difference in my life. I see a lot of people here who do or have barely anything, but Happiness itself. It’s a difficult topic. I’ll go with the satisfied term for now.
Another personal example: We went on a little jungle-y, a bit branched bike ride in the company of some local girls. Where I least expected it, we met a very nice, smiling man sitting on a board-like structure made of planks on one of the small lakes. He cut coconuts and he was about to eat lunch. By the time I realized, my fellow travelers were already sitting around the table on the pier, so I quickly balanced myself through on the planks that led to the pier. 6 chairs, two small tabletops, a thatched roof, and an icebox. Nice little sight. The gentleman offered us coconut water. He slapped the end with a machete, threw straw into it and handed it to us with a smile. We sat and drank in silence. In the meantime, he set out for his lunch, which he offered us (it’s still incredible that selfishness, as such, is missing from the everyday lives of the people here), and then he started telling stories. About the fact that this place is his and not far from his home and he goes there on foot every morning. About the new tabletop, he made or found recently. I wasn’t quite sure about that. About making a living out of the cyclists who get lost to find themselves drinking coconut water ON HIS PIER. He collects coconut from the woods, every day. Proudest man I’ve ever seen.
What did I learn from this?
I’d like to quote Sam Cawthorn: “The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything but they make the most of everything.”
Back to the slowdown thought: It may not be the best thing we can do to go for it like a madman without a reason and always want more, better, bigger things in life. Our lives are significantly faster, the pace is tighter, the calendars are fuller than those of our ancestors or even our parents. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to slow down a bit. Allow ourselves time to process events, and make decisions with a clear state of mind about what we really want to invest energy in and what we’re just shoveling money, time, energy into, that’s not serving us, nor our environment.
Mai pen rai
I left the most beautiful and decisive lesson possible to the end.
I would like to quote a Buddhist teaching to you, so perhaps it will be easier to understand how I decoded the meaning of the term, Mai pen rai (which means does not matter, it’s okay, let it go in my interpretation):
“If you can’t accept it, change it. If you can’t change it, leave it.”
Mai pen rai might be the philosophy of not chewing upon small things. We shouldn’t worry about things that we can change very little about. It has happened and now we need to get over it.
By making this phrase our motto, perhaps we can live a more carefree life by dealing with things only that really have weight for us and not thinking about that half-slice of cake that we just dropped to the ground on Monday.
This might not be new to everyone. I am not saying it will be useful to everyone. Every person’s life is different, everyone experiences events differently, reacts differently to them. These thoughts have helped me a lot. Now I make better decisions when I set goals, choose different tasks and last but not least: when I spend my time with people, I try to really listen to them and be there with them, physically and in my mind as well.
I wish everyone to find a way to get the most out of this situation! Stay safe!
Schark