Accepting Things As They Are
“Just be OK with it,” is what someone once told me. I nodded my head in agreement thinking, “yeah, I can do that.” But thinking that you are OK with something and feeling it deep in your heart and accepting what you might not really deep down think is OK, are two different things.
It’s a little bit like getting older and realizing that you can’t do the same things you used to (and most likely don’ t have the desire to) but nonetheless you eventually get to a point where you are OK with it. It’s a process of letting go, being free of the prison oand locked bars around you that you placed there yourself.
It also relates to living abroad. It’s an acceptance that things are not the same. That you can’t live your life in the same way as you used to and you either have to just be OK with it and accept it or you fight it and get frustrated. The only person that loses is you. It does take a little mental work though. It doesn’t come completey natural. It takes a certain kind of awareness of knowing what it is exactly that gets under your skin and why and then deconstructing it to find out how you can make peace with it. That and finding the good in it. There’s always a brigher side. It’s up to you to find it and make the decision to look at it.
I am starting to be OK with a lot of things – many relating to life abroad, my own personal struggles and also most importantly my limitations. Not being “free” to go grocery shopping 24 hours a day is one of them, but I made peace with that a long time ago. In the end it’s me that calls them limitations as there are likely other areas where I will soar high above any perceived ceiling I imagine there to be. It’s my commitment to find this, embrace it and enjoy the process along the way.
Laura Stadler Consulting 
I can’t imagine what it is like to live so far away from the US.
You should also realize how lucky you. Some people only dream of living somewhere else, let alone another country. I know it would take some getting used to, and having a different culture to contend with. I believe the pro’s can outweigh the cons, e.g. culture, art, and food. And I would like to have 2 places to call home.
I hope you stay happy and enjoy it!
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I’m feeling for you here.
It’s easy to feel for someone else than to look at me, oh dear, not at a level of acceptance here yet at all. Still struggling with the shopping restrictions, the missing of certain foodstuffs, the yearning for a ‘decent’ conversation in own language. These things, they seem so superficial, but they signify something else I guess.
‘If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere’ is what I say to myself, but then, environment plays a huge part in our happiness, our health. We are not saints, LOL!
I am on the one hand, scared of accepting the ‘way things are’ here in DK and still wrinkle my nose at a lot of the culture and the homogenised appearance of it all, but on the other, now really tired, been in the saddle long and just want to settle down.
That’s definitely age!
It’s like teetering on the edge of something. Do I check my passport is still up to date or book me a place for the future in a Danish church yard? It would be nice to just settle, but I think the spirit that brought us here, the wanderlust in itself, will somehow prevent us from having both feet in the ground. Maybe.
I wonder what it is that is so scary about settling?
The homeland I left and almost play at being bereft of..it has changed so much anyway, I couldn’t call it home any more, so this Denmark, this could become a future home – if I let it embrace me.
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Hi,
I’m going private of my blog. If you want to keep reading it please give me your e-mail address.
Thanks.
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I hear ya, but dont you feel now that you kinda forget about some things and get in the swing of the new life style? It amazes me how different things are in dk from the short trip from the uk!
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My trip was fine…stayed home most of the time. Enjoyed the holiday spirit and shopping 🙂
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