Abandoning Judgement
The first day I got to Barcelona I had an inclination that time would pass quicker than any other time in my life. When I initially spoke with my new coworkers from the hostel about their time here they were blown away at how fast it all passed. It's been three weeks already and man am I saddened to say that I feel like I arrived just a week ago.
Life has been moving so incredibly fast. I mean, I knew it would, how could it not when I'm meeting around 5-20 new people every day. These meet and greet scenarios don't just include getting their name upon arrival and asking them how they're doing. These friendships quickly develop when I get to show them the city while experiencing many of their firsts. They grow stronger after getting to know more of them while talking at dinner and spending a night on the town.
If there is one thing I've learned here that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life it's to never assume anything about anyone upon seeing and meeting them. Yeah it seems easier said than done, but with patience and understanding, we can all get there. It's my belief that change comes after we understand that it's in our nature to have a judgement about the things we experience in our daily life. Whether that judgement is of another person, or how your work day will go, or how your upcoming date will pan out, etc. Understanding that it's been engrained in our lifestyle from an early age makes it easier to acknowledge that we do these things. Once we acknowledge this harsh and detrimental way of living, optimism and empathy start to become more prominent, and we learn to let go of judgement. And hey, this slowly works its way into the ways we judge ourselves - the harshest type of judgement.
I became friends with a 70-something year old woman who was traveling by herself. She stayed at Hostel One Sants and came to majority of our day activities and group dinners where she met more younger adults that normally may have been deemed a bit wild for her taste, but she absolutely loved her time spent with our rowdy bunch. I met a hispanic looking man from South Africa who went to school for 10 years before becoming a chemical engineer to change the course of our world's environment and climate. Man did he have a library full of complicated and beautiful information in his noggin. He wanted to learn how to play piano so one day he sat down and started playing. Now he captures his emotions and creates songs on the spot. These are good songs you guys, so good. He then went on to tell me how eventually he got the courage to share them with people, but the feedback he received was far from positive. It broke my heart a bit knowing we're told to express, and when we do go on to share it, it can quickly get shot down and judged. Art is expression - theres no standard of expression in my eyes. There's no good or bad kind, it's all beautiful.
I met another man from the UK who had a near death experience that left him with a broken body. He's now traveling around solo on crutches until he no longer can. We spoke softly at dinner and quickly accomplished comfortability in our understanding of one another. I spoke with him about meditation and what it could do for his life, and he shared secrets that fostered a sense of vulnerability between us. He brought me in for a long and meaningful hug before thanking me for the care I showed.
This is the beauty in traveling alone. It seems to be a universal and commonly shared notion that time is precious and extremely limited. We only have so many days, or even minutes to get to know one another, and to shy away from extremely unique conversations with even more exceptional human beings, I feel, would be a waste of time and resources. To know that the exchange of ideas and enriching discussion with fearless people could shape your life and who you grow to be, is hands down one of the most magical parts of experiencing people from other cultures and backgrounds. So, my best advice is to let your guard down because theres nothing transformative about fitting in and keeping cool. Really, to embrace oddity and abnormality in expression is key in the healthful restoration of oneself.
