Life in Korea: The Way Things Are, The Way It's Always Been

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:”
Ecclesiastes 3:1


My time in South Korea has allowed me to meet lots of people from all walks in life and I’ve valued the lessons and blessings I’ve gotten from each of them.  I’d never thought of myself as being sensitive, but after an insightful conversation with a handsome male friend I realized that not only am I sensitive, I’m highly sensitive or an HSP..
I’ve learned that things changing too quickly makes me anxious and stressed.  I’ve learned that I really enjoy volunteering so long as it has some structure.   I’m grateful for these new experiences, but new experiences are a part of life; there’s something incredible about doing something for the very first time.

For one, people don’t change.  Well, better to say that people rarely change.   And although times have changed, I haven’t changed much.


When I accepted a one year teaching contract to teach in South Korea, I expected everything to change.  And for a while everything is new;  there are new foods, new people and a whole different culture.  There are also tons to things to see and experience.  But it’s been about 19 months total living and teaching in Asia and really, looking back at life in general, not much has really changed.  

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1: 9

Still, I used to think that we defined ourselves.  But that’s not entirely true.  From the time we’re born, we’re learning about the world from our individual experiences and these experiences help to shape us into individuals. So in essence, you are the sum total of your experience with life (that’s nature and nurture).  But what about when your experience with life has been less than desirable?  Although it might be hard to admit it, those experiences might have left it's mark depending on how intense or prolonged it was.  

So, what if all the criticisms that have been piled up so high that self-hatred has crept in?  And one day, you find yourself on the path to self-destruction, already defined by the sum total of your experiences.  What do you do then?The answer:  With life, there is hope.  The thing is, even though we can be defined by our experiences, new experiences are still on the horizon.  But being able to accept ourselves even on our ugliest days and irrespective of our past is essential to our well-being.  

And so, as I can live each day, trying things for the first time I remember that the way things are, are the way they’ve always been–and I take comfort in that.