Author: Katie Fetter

On November 24th, two days before Thanksgiving, I received a security message from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. It was a travel alert, urging American citizens to exercise extra caution while traveling during the holiday season.

It relayed, “These [terrorist] attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics, using conventional and non-conventional weapons and targeting both official and private interests.”

I wondered – Is there any kind of weapon that is neither conventional nor non-conventional? Is there any interest that is neither official nor private? The embassy’s message was, in my point of view, a more refined way of saying that extremists are everywhere and they’re using any method deemed “effective” in carrying out a sick mission.

Was the message supposed to make me feel frightened? Angry? Should I have wanted to pack up my belongings and head home to New Jersey, to retreat in fear with the rest of America?

I wanted to learn more, so I sat behind my laptop and googled “ISIS,” “possibility of threat” and “religious extremism” until I no longer felt completely ignorant. I absorbed the basic facts of an incredibly complex issue and formed my own opinion.

I won’t deny it – the more “facts” I learned, the deeper my heart sank in its own pool of tears that it cried for the world. What could I do? How could I help? These questions only led to the same conclusion, one that left me feeling more useless than ever. One that left me fearing that I actually couldn’t do anything at all.

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A few months ago I spent a weekend visiting Hua Hin, a beach city about five hours north of Sawi. Traveling alone, I knew my tour options were limited and set out on the city streets with no agenda. On my Saturday morning walk towards the sea I spotted a middle-aged, handicapped Thai man waving me down with an enthusiastic grin on his face.

Shoved into my hands against my will was a Hua Hin tourism book filled with images and descriptions of popular destinations. Page after page the man marveled about the touristic gems of the province. I must’ve had “hesitant” written on my forehead because he then continued in broken English, “It’s off season, many days I have no business. Please, I take you to any of these beautiful places!”

I don’t know if it was his accommodating smile, his knowledge of the area, the way he quickly limped across the road with absolutely no regard for oncoming traffic, sympathy, or his kind lazy eyes, but I decided to pay Koko the driver the near equivalent of $30 for his driving services that day.

About halfway through the 45-minute drive towards Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, we were slowed to a stop by a few police officers doing random checks. I flashed a wide grin and “Sawadee” to the officer peering through the driver’s seat window, but his cheekbones didn’t flinch. We were instructed to pull to the side of the road, and Koko was summoned to step out of the car. I watched the two men – one clearly helpless and the other clearly on a power trip – have a short conversation, which ended in Koko whipping out his wallet and handing over some hard-earned Thai Baht.

I was confused and concerned. Why would Koko need to bribe the man? Am I sitting in the car with a criminal? I blatantly asked him,

“Koko, why were we pulled over? Why did you give the officer money?”

He said casually, “We were pulled over because I look strange, and I have a nice friendly foreign lady in my back seat. The officers were thirsty, so they picked me to buy some drinks.”

In other words, Koko’s “passage fee” was a couple of sodas, quite possibly a headache, and definitely a blow to his self-esteem.

The rest of the car ride was filled with mutual respect, laughter, and great conversation. Koko was eager to tell me about his life, his country, and his king. And if it weren’t for that kind, persistent driver, I wouldn’t have had one of the best travel days of my life, having the great opportunity to see some of Thailand’s most magnificent beauty.

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I’m sure I can speak for all travelers when I say there’s a very fine line between fear and faith in humanity. It is a moment of hope that is all too often halted by the possibility of danger and defeat. It is an inner battle, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to a number of days, that tears apart the cohesiveness of mind and heart when forced to operate in an unfamiliar environment. Any seasoned traveler should have the smarts to question the validity of another’s claims. But as soon as we let fear get in the way of our travel goals, we are destined for failure.

I never would have taken Koko for a religious extremist or psycho-terrorist, but I did have my doubts about him. On the other hand, I expected the officer to be a respectful, law-abiding citizen who would never pick on a poor cab driver.

Fear leads to skepticism, which leads to hate, which then leads to more fear. Trust may leave you at the mercy of another, but it’s that surrender, that slight risk that can bring forth unimaginable happiness.

Balancing on that fine line between fear and faith is like walking on a tight rope of trust, as we are destined to fall one way or another.

I lied – I can do something about the increase in terroristic threat. Actually, we all can. 

We can do what we can with the trust that lives in our hearts. We can surrender to the care of others – with reasonable caution, of course – and have faith in the human race. We can choose to show compassion and open our minds to different cultural practices, however bizarre they may seem to be. We can choose to show courage, to counteract the inherent fear that lodges itself deep in the back of our minds. We can realize that we are no safer in America, where Donald Trump (enough said) is an actual candidate for the 2016 presidential election. We can step with jai. We can choose love over hate any day by simply having faith, and by letting fate do its natural work.

We can walk the tight rope between fear and faith and fall towards the latter.

Faith will be our greatest asset against terrorism. And for this reason, I will never stop traveling.

 

I am afraid of the truth, almost as much as I am afraid of pity. But if there’s anything I’ve learned in Thailand, it is to face the uncomfortable in order to make it comfortable.

This post is not for myself, but for the small number of people who may take something from it.

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In early October, I attended a 3-day Buddhist meditation retreat in Koh Samui. Nestled high in the only mountain of the popular tourist island, I found a peculiar kind of tranquility over the chaos that lured beneath me. I learned many things, among them:

Simple living is the best kind of living. Although sleeping on nothing but a wooden board and straw mat was quite extreme for my liking, it was actually quite refreshing to wear no makeup, to be free of electronic devices, and to put on the same clothes each morning.

Buddhism is a way of life, not a religion. The first thing I saw when I walked into the meditation center was a giant poster reading the Three Resolutions of Ajahn Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, the founder of the center and one of the most influential Buddhist philosophers of the 20^th century:

1. That all people strive to realize the heart of their own religions
2. That all people make mutual good understanding of essential principles among the religions
3. That all people liberate themselves from the power of materialism

If that doesn’t convince you that Buddhism is awesome, then I don’t know what will.

Mindfulness is key. A large aspect of meditation, it is important to watch and listen to the body by looking inward. Recognizing and being aware of the basic functions of the body help to keep us grounded in a world of distractions. It urges us to be aware of the mental state, to recognize why certain emotions are felt, so that we may know how to properly deal with them. Above all, it helps us to be thankful.

Meditation is more than sitting. It is standing and walking. It is mindfulness with breathing, or anapanacity in the Pali language. It is clearing the mind, or as the Polish Buddhist monk so rightfully put it, “emptying the glass of stale water that is the mind so that we may have room to fill it up again.”

And on the third and last day I learned Loving Kindness Meditation. 

First, we were instructed to close our eyes, to sit comfortably, and imagine ourselves as a warm sun. Then we were to “radiate warmth in the form of love and kindness” to a number of people – first to ourselves, then to someone we love, to a person we admire, to someone who has wronged us deeply, and finally to all beings of the world. 

I found it beautiful, nonetheless enlightening. I was intrigued yet emotionally distraught by how it was equally difficult to send love and kindness to myself and to the one who had wronged me. I sat in my meditative position confused and saddened. I understood why it was hard to forgive my father (and it was pretty damn hard), but why was it so hard for me to love myself?

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For such a simple word, love is much more complex than we’ll ever know. It is impossible to quantify, to categorize, or to organize love. It is uncontrollable – therefore you cannot pack it up and store it for another time. Although it grows, you cannot decide when and where it will do so.

I thought I loved myself until that very moment – I really did. But only now I know it was not love, but appreciation. It was easy to pat myself on the back for every major stride I’d made in life – whether it was as meager as losing a few pounds or as esteemed as graduating with high honors from business school. But it was not love, because all of those things I had accomplished were admittedly for the approval of those I loved. Not often did I think I was smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough, or even worthy enough to deserve the gratification for my successes, however great they seemed to be in the eyes of others.

Love for one’s self, I’ve determined, is therefore non-existent if the value you see in yourself is lower than your value in the eyes of loved ones.

Only here in Thailand, on the other side of the world, with nobody to impress or nobody from which to receive approval, had I seen this clearly. Since the beginning of this experience I thought I was destined to find what I love doing, when in reality it was self-love that I needed to find.

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November 25^th, 2015 marked the 12^th month of the traditional Thai lunar calendar and also the date of the festival named Loy Krathong. It is custom to light and float a krathong, which is made of a banana tree trunk, banana leaves, flowers, incense and candles, into streaming water to give thanks to the water goddesses.

However, there is a dual meaning to the floating of the krathongs, as it also symbolizes purification, or liberating of the negative things in life to make room for the new.

Following custom, my new friends and I cut our nails and small pieces of our hair (symbolizing the old and negative) and scattered it onto our krathongs, kindly handmade by my English director’s adorable daughter. We then lit our candles, walked to the bank of the river, and made our wishes.

I cannot explain how or why my wish for self-love came first, as I hadn’t thought about it since I departed from the meditation retreat. I asked God for forgiveness in being selfish, but that I desperately wanted all feelings of negativity, all self-doubt, to find a place in the Gulf of Thailand. It had no business taking up residence in my mind anymore. I lowered my krathong into the river and shed a tear as I watched it float away.

In the days that followed I felt lighter, happier, like a burden had been lifted from my soul. Although it was Thanksgiving and I was missing my family more than ever, I became engaged in my work at school. I arranged a number of exciting activities for my students – they improved their English skills while creating advertising posters for a beach cleanup, then they made “thankful trees” by tracing their hands on paper and revealing what they are thankful for in life. I watched them smile, learn, and create – all from my doing.

Like I stated before, you cannot decide when and where love grows. The love I’ve cultivated for my students has been growing all along and is stronger than ever at this moment.

I cannot say when or where my self-love will grow, but I can confidently say that I am seeing my value again, and I think that’s a pretty good place to start.

This morning was the first in almost two weeks in which a clear blue sky radiated from my bedside window. Between rolling from beneath the covers and coiling into the cold shower, I took a long look into my cracking, plastic-lined bathroom mirror. It was just another day in Thailand, just another morning routine, only this time I saw myself as I truly was, as I truly am in this faraway country. My hair was blonder, and my eyes glowed a brighter blue as a result of the darker, tanned tone of my skin. My forehead was spotted with heat bumps that never seem to go away, and my rosy cheeks appeared a tad chubbier, as the rice is plentiful. But the most captivating observation of all was how content I seemed to be. And I was content – not overjoyed, not lackluster, but inherently satisfied.

I remembered the reflection of a different woman – I’ve written about her before. “Uninspired” had been transcribed in every fake smirk on her lips, while inner turmoil irritated her skin and saddened her gray-blue eyes. She had been distressed by the news that she’d been trotting in the wrong direction for too long, and her confusion created a drowsy fog so thick in her prefrontal cortex that she could not see anything, even her physical self, clearly in the mirror.

I have run a time-lapse video of the past five years over and over again in my head, and I am incapable of remembering the day-to-day reasons why I made certain decisions. It was like I had some type of “premonition” for how I was to live my life, and my mind controlled each move I made as if I were a string puppet. Pulled and pushed I fumbled into assured directions because that was how the story was to unfold.

Decisions of the mind are easy because every move you make is based on the premise of what is right, but who is to say what right is when it is really none other than the opposite of wrong? It was certainly right to go to college, right to be a “well-rounded” individual, right to major in a business-related field, and right to work for a top marketing research firm upon graduation. But right only got me far enough to realize that something major was missing in my life.

I ignored the truth that had nestled itself in the deepest cavities of my insides. It had once pitter-pattered its way into my thoughts every now and then, but after several years of my own ignorance it halted all protest and silenced completely. This realization reminded me of a passage I’d recently read.

In the classic novel, The Alchemist, a boy’s long journey towards finding his treasure is interrupted by a number of internal highs and lows, moments of small victory and immense fear of failure, and in one of these moments his heart speaks out,

‘Everyone on Earth has a treasure that awaits him,’ his heart said. ‘We, people’s hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them… Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place. So we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won’t be heard: we don’t want people to suffer because they don’t follow their hearts.’

From then on, the boy understood his heart. He asked it, please, never to stop speaking to him. He asked that, when he wandered far from his dreams, his heart press him and sound the alarm. The boy swore that, every time he heard the alarm, he would heed its message.

In all its glory my heart sounded, and this time I answered. Threatened I was, not only by myself but also by the world, fearing that I would burn badly by playing with fire. The first step in making one of the biggest decisions of my life was taking back control, because in reality, we are the drivers and not the passengers. We are the writers, not the characters. We are the puppeteers, not the puppets. We hold the hoses to put out our own fires, and our hearts are the enablers.

Decisions made with the heart feel like massive contradictions, and in a way they are. When you’ve gone so long listening only to your narrow mind, it is nearly impossible to find a reason to say, “yes” to an exotic idea. Going to Thailand seemed like both a dumb, irrational move and the adventure of a lifetime. While the decision completely contradicted anything and everything I ever stood for, I wanted to see the world, immerse myself in a new culture, make a difference, and find a passion. Most of all, my heart craved happiness. The biggest gift Thailand has given me is purity, which has stripped me of any mental bias I’d previously had and allowed me to start fresh. It allowed me to see the world in a new light, with endless possibility and beauty, as if I were looking through a child’s eyes. With this purity I am rebuilding from the inside out, rather than from the outside in.

The Thai language is beautiful, for it has a wide vocabulary for any simple English word. In Thai, heart takes many forms. There’s gen, meaning, “core,” ruup hua jai, or “figure of a heart,” jut sam kan, meaning “important point,” huua-jai, meaning “heart organ,” poo-daeng, “the playing card suit,” and jai, or “spirit.” When I moved to Thailand, I stepped with the spirit in my heart, my jai, and it is also the first big decision in a long time that I haven’t regretted this late in the game.

This morning, when I looked into the mirror, I saw a woman far from perfect. I am nearing 24 years of age and still don’t know what the hell I want, but what I do know is, with each step of my heart, I am getting a little bit closer. I am playing with the idea of teaching in America or even going back to school for social work. I am imagining a future while still listening from within. From now on, I will continue to move in the direction that feels like home rather than that which is “right,” because every step with jai is productive, even if the end of the road is unknown.

If something is wrong, change it. If there’s a decision to be made, then with your jai you should make it – before it really is too late.

The post Stepping With My Jai appeared first on Tori Slater.

It happens at least once a month. After being over-adventurous at the local market, I regretfully end up spending a few lethargic days battling the stomach flu. Today was one of those days.

After a few weeks of little inspiration to write, these past few days have tested my strength as I conquered a month that has brought me mental and physical challenges beyond what I am used to. On one side of the endless battle between me and myself, I am the audacious, down-for-anything type that will always say, “Yes” to experiencing local food and culture, even though it may pose risks to my health. On the other side, I am overly cautious and mindful. Finding this balance is one of the hardest things to do when you are in an unfamiliar yet fascinating place (especially if you’re as adventurous as I am).

Life doesn’t stop for anyone to make proper decisions all the time – it keeps on going. Life doesn’t always pause for contemplations, like when I’m staring at the roti cart in envy as I wait in line and suddenly it’s my turn to order artery-clogging fried sugar dough. I think to myself – “Dammit, I didn’t really want to buy it, but I already have my 15 Baht ready to pay, so why not…” Life also doesn’t stop for small crises, like when I am preparing for a class in five minutes and am about to burst from both ends.

At 9:30am, my joyful and bustling first graders ran into my room like a herd of buffalo, chasing and toppling over one another to claim their favorite desks. A majority runs into me first, with arms spread wider than they are tall, embracing me with the largest and longest of hugs. Little Kam Kam (but actually the biggest girl in the class) greets me in tears, as she is sweet but overly sensitive. I don’t know what happened because she explained it all in Thai, but in times like these language doesn’t matter. I play the Mom role and wipe her tears away, embracing her as she cries on my shirt. I ask the shortest and tallest students to stand in the front of the room in preparation for a lesson on the basic words of length. The tiniest student in the class shouts, “I AM TALL!” I laugh because he’s clearly not – only the size of a bedside table, if that – but he’s got the tallest, or largest, personality of them all. I wanted to shout to him, “Yes, lil nugget, you are SO SO tall! Believe in yourself!” but my Thai co-teacher would think I was insane. By the end of class I was no longer focused on my stomach spasms, but on the students’ eager, partially-toothed smiles that could brighten even the gloomiest of days. The students exited with the same loud ruckus, in the same buffalo-herd-like manner in which they had entered, not one leaving the room without an embrace from Teacher Tori.

Thank you, sweet seven year olds, for showing me continuous love when I need it most.

At 10:35am (always late), my sixth graders waltzed in. Quite behind in the curriculum, I quickly got to work explaining the ins and outs of decimals. When I finally gave them some additional work to do on their own, which seemed to be quite easy on their smarty-pants brains, I had a moment to breathe. I had been feverish, sweating like a pig even with the air conditioning on. One of my students could see that I had been staring into space – that often happens when I’m thinking – and I happened to be staring near his gaze. The class was silently working and I had just taken a swig of water when he let out a loud “RAAAAAAIIIIIYYYYRRRR!” like a scared cat, putting his hands at his mouth like paws. My water didn’t make it down my throat. The whole class erupted in laughter, as did I.

Thank you, pretentious twelve year olds, for making math a little less boring.

Fast-forward to 2:30pm, and it was time for English Speaking Club. My ladyboy student Edward wanted to try on my shoes, so I let him prance around in them for a while. Even for an eleven-year-old boy, being a homosexual in Thailand is nothing to be ashamed about. Last week I had decided to teach the students about communicating with foreigners, because tourism is always pretty hot in Thailand. Blackberry Kim and Katy Perry (yes, those are their names) immediately got to work practicing the dialogues I had assigned. As all five students continued to recite their lines, I instantly became aware of how much they must have practiced in just a few short days. Each week they show up with an enthusiasm beyond anything I’ve ever seen. They ask questions, they repeat pronunciation until they get it right, they want my approval, they want to know more about everything, and I am happy to be their resource.

My blog posts have been primarily concerned with the way this experience in Thailand has been changing me, but the direct affect of my time at this school expands way beyond myself. For many Thai students, learning English is key to a better life, as it allows them the opportunity to seek occupations beyond general reach. With an education in English, students may pursue a degree abroad or work in any industry that communicates in the most commonly spoken language of the world, such as hospitality or medicine.

Blackberry lives in a small fisherman’s village, and her father is a fisherman. She is the happiest girl I’ve met in Thailand, and she will also be the one I look back on in ten years and see her life most changed.

Suddenly, my lack of inspiration to write, my stomach flu, and my negative attitude became the least of my concerns.

I looked at my five English stars in Speaking Club, realized how bright they shine, and noticed how much potential they have to be anyone they want to be.

Thank you, my dear students, for giving me a purpose worth working for.

 

The post A Thank You Note appeared first on Tori Slater.

Every day at approximately 11:35 am I stride purposefully into the canteen amid a regular pang of hunger, as I have been resisting the ordinary Thai breakfast of rice and pork soup for a simple banana. Somewhere in between the jolly greetings of my students and helping myself to lunch, I feel the stares on my skin like concentrated heat from laser beams. The Thai teachers inspect my every move, from the way my skirt flows with each step to how much green curry I scoop onto my plate. When I sit down, smiles and “Sawadees” are exchanged, but they are never quite willing to leave the intense conversation among their inner circles to speak with the farang teacher.

On one particular day, I decided to rest my plate of Pad Thai across from the assistant director at our school, Miss Usa. She is an older, more serious woman but has a special generosity that can only be described as “grandmother-like.” Expecting to engage in polite conversation, my lips were nearly parted to ask her how she was doing when she asked me abruptly, “Are you lonely?”

To be completely honest, I didn’t know how to answer that question. I had not thought about the way I must “seem to feel” in the eyes of others, nor have I truly understood the way I feel at all. It had been nearly two weeks since the last American teachers left Sawi, and in that time period I had not conversed with anyone but the Thais. I stand alone at assembly every morning at 8am, not understanding a word that is spoken. I enter and leave school alone, I see my students while I am walking around town alone, I eat dinner every single night alone, I sit on my balcony and watch the sunset alone, alone, ALONE. Yet my answer to Miss Usa’s question was, “No, not necessarily…”

And that’s the truth. I am not lonely. But why?

I have spent a majority of my life dealing with “clutter.” This is not to be mistaken for mess-type clutter, as I am irked at the thought of an unmade bed. The clutter I speak of is mind clutter. I made decisions based on the beliefs and values of others, I engaged in unruly gossip, and most predominately, I claimed the problems of others as my own, making every effort to try and solve them along the way. Opinions, judgments, and dependency cluttered my mind with a never-ending string of empty, meaningless thoughts.

In my little sanctuary of Sawi, I am living free of this clutter, this continuous “overcast” that has prevented me from having productive, meaningful thoughts. When this little town began feeling like home, things I had once tried so hard to see became clear without intent. In solitude, I am discovering my strengths, weaknesses and interests. In solitude, I am forced to be strong as much as I am subject to vulnerability, the two extremes meeting me harmoniously in the middle. I am aware, I am observant, and I am content. I have self-reflected more in the past three months than I have in my lifetime. My thoughts, without interference from external sources, are really all the company I need.

This past weekend I voyaged to the beautiful Cheow Lan Lake of Khao Sok National Park in Surat Thani Province, about two hours south of my little town of Sawi. And yes, as you may have already guessed, I traveled alone. I stayed at a floating raft house, nestled into one of the many narrowing nooks of the vast lake. Upon my arrival, I hopped onto one of the kayaks and paddled out past the small lake community, heading towards one of the several massive limestone rock formations protruding from below the water. I extended my back to the base of the kayak in the incredibly still turquoise lake with my face towards the sun, looking up at the mountainous rock ahead. I wondered how it had come to be, how the non-living mass before me must have an incredible history that no one would ever know. I heard animals of all kinds – birds, insects, and amphibians – making conversation in the jungle just a few meters away. As I write this, I can still smell the moist, grassy air mixed with thick fog not yet burned off by the sun. At the time I was so overwhelmed with gratification that the glass of my eyes had blurred, I may have shed a tear or two when I realized:

I am never really alone. None of us are.

Yes, I miss being able to discuss with like-minded individuals. Yes, it would bring me great joy to tell someone how I had just spent five minutes laughing my ass off in the bathroom after spraying myself in the face with the bum gun. Yes, I miss being able to stare at good-looking white males. Just this weekend, I encountered two very attractive Englishmen on the express train to Surat Thani and my heart fluttered like a 13-year-old girl’s after meeting Harry Styles backstage at a One Direction concert.

But I wouldn’t exchange this experience, lonely or not, for anything.

Independence has always been important to me, even as a young girl. Coming from somewhat of an unstable home, I learned to fear dependency on others, therefore valuing my freedom exponentially. This is certainly benefiting me now more than ever.

Coincidentally, as I scribbled down the notes in my journal that have become the contents of this blog post, a few meaningful words by Buddha streamed across the top of the page:

We are shaped by our thoughts, we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows.

At the beginning of this journey, I set out to “find myself” in Thailand. While that is somewhat true, something has changed. Yes I want to find a passion, but I never should have started out with the intention of finding “me.”

The more I sit here in solitude, the more I realize that I was never really “lost” at all. I have always been here, only letting the clutter of my mind interfere. If I am shaped by the thoughts I have in Thailand, then I think i’ll find joy in the person I become.

I just have some thinking to do, that’s all.

The post Solitude appeared first on Tori Slater.

I want you to take a moment to think about your perfect self, if you’ve ever imagined one.

Who are you? What is your career? Who are your friends? Where do you live? How are you defining success – by experiences, by free time, or by the monetary worth of your belongings? Keep this in your mind as you continue to read.

About five years ago I mentally created the perfect “me” and did every single thing I could to get myself there. In college, I sought positions of leadership in campus organizations and tried way too hard in my classes. I spent weekends searching for internships and stressed about paying rent, promising myself that once I graduated with my business degree I would never, ever, have to worry about my inexistent funds again. I saw myself in a position of power, living in the perfect Manhattan boutique apartment, living freely and independently without a financial worry in the world.

With every small success, I saw two more obstacles ahead of me. Then came the worries, the anxiety, the self-inflicted pressure and stress that I would never actually complete this perfect picture because of my heightened capacity to drop the paintbrush. Satisfaction was an impossible reach because of wanting. I wanted more out of myself, always.

It only took me ten months out of college to realize that in the past five years, I was too busy worrying about the outcome of my efforts to actually see what I really wanted out of life. It was at this point, right around mid-February of 2015, when I decided to drop everything and move to Thailand to… what? Teach English? I may as well have scribbled all over that damn painting.

Even when I thought I had escaped the confinement pushed into by my worries, they continued to haunt me after I made this life-changing decision. I wondered: Will I find a job when I eventually come home? Will I hate teaching? Will I be lonely? And the most daunting of all – Am I setting myself back by moving abroad?

During the first week of my teacher-training course in Chiang Mai, we learned some important Thai phrases to help us get by while we continued to figure out the language on our own. One in particular that caught my interest was “Mai pen rai,” literally meaning “No worries.” The first time I heard it in action was, coincidentally, on my first day of school when I was teaching my first graders for the first time. I prepared an excellent lesson on the first five letters of the alphabet, only to realize too soon that they were way too advanced for it. Kru Nui, my daunting but oddly kind Thai co-teacher, knew I was stressed while I tried to re-plan the hour that lie ahead. She smiled and said softly, “Mai pen rai.” This woman saw right through me as if I were made of glass.

Fast forward eight weeks, and I have learned so much more about this little magic phrase, “Mai pen rai.” The consistent pressure that is placed on students in America is, in no way, reflective of how the Thai classroom operates. The students who are enthusiastic and do well in the classroom are those who actually want to learn, who want to do well for their family and for themselves. They are not really forced to do anything at all, and in effect they do not (to my knowledge) act or do as a result of pressure.

Thai culture is much more collectivist than individualistic, and I see this through the way my students act. If one cannot finish a worksheet or writes the wrong answer on the blackboard, his or her peers help out until the problem is solved. They work together to complete tasks, they cheat on tests, and they share colored pencils. They share everything, maybe even a little too much personal space, and it is all quite wonderful. They have “no worries” because sweet time is taken, and someone will always be there to compensate for lazed efforts. The strengths of some make up for the “weaknesses” in others, yet they are all equals in each other’s eyes.

The Thai people I’ve had the pleasure to know well believe it best to let “the little things go”, or to “not sweat the small stuff,” resulting in a stable, if not permanent, state of contentment. And I think they’ve got it right, because in the grand scope of things… do our worries really matter?

The relaxed and laid back nature of Thai people, along with their “Mai pen rai” lifestyle, has forced me to look at my own condition and re-asses it all.

The perfect picture I longed for, wished for, worked so completely hard for, let me down because I latched onto it like a life-vest on a sinking ship. By having such deep desires for my life, such high expectations, I was only setting myself up for inevitable disappointment. My wants created more wants, which created worries, which created a “wanting” to rid of the worries. It is a vicious cycle, and I am just now breaking free of it. I do not know if my time abroad will somehow lead me on the right track, but I have stopped worrying about it. I have finally realized that this is a path that I am traveling, not just a road to an inexistent destination, and I have never felt more at peace.

I am not saying it is bad to have expectations. Because without expectations and goals, how could our society ever accomplish anything at all? I am saying that expectations do not have to be so severe, so permanent in our minds that they may as well be tattooed on our foreheads.

Think back to the “perfect you” that you created at the beginning of this post. For those of you who have fulfilled your perfect self, I am happy for you. For those of you who haven’t – what is keeping you from doing so? Stress? Problems? Pressure? Worries? I get it. Some of them seem to be inescapable. In no way do I have the right to preach, as I am only a rookie in this topic, but I think it’s better if you let them go.

Let go of the “perfect you” and understand that nobody is perfect, that expectations will only lead to disappointment. Break free of the chains you contain yourself in, the conceptualizations we create called “worries” or “problems,” because they only exist in your mind, not anyone else’s. Know that letting go may actually lead you in the right direction anyway. It’s okay to backtrack to get to where you need to go.

Stop worrying so much. I know I have.

Mai pen rai.

 

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“Live life to the fullest.”

I’ve heard this phrase thousands of times, and I bet you have too.

Do we really know how to live life to its fullest potential? The phrase is often perceived as a declaration of time, in which we must strive for experience and seek to find a deeper meaning in our lives before that precious time runs out. It suggests that we “live in the moment” with little regard for our past and future. It means something different to us all, because each and every one of us has obstacles to overcome, a personalized mark to make on the world, a goal to reach that sometimes feels unreachable.

Living life to the fullest, as I’ve come to realize, is not just about making our time on this Earth worthwhile. It’s not just about fitting in experiences in fear of never making our “mark”- the intangible bar we set so high that we sometimes fail to jump.

In order to truly live life to the fullest, we must see the beauty that surrounds us every day. Because if we can’t see beauty, what makes our lives worth being fulfilled? No matter where we are located on this planet, no matter how old we are, no matter our financial situation or social status, there is beauty in life waiting to be found if we have the simple desire to look.

I am currently located in one of the most rural parts of southern Thailand. I wake up every morning to the jubilant sounds of roosters and cows, and I am lulled to sleep by the loud chirping of geckos and crickets. Ants swarm my apartment daily, and I find at least five new mosquito bites on my body every morning. The only thing to do in Sawi is to drive along the main roads and hope for a pleasant outcome. I define success by finding another restaurant that serves stir-fried vegetables, because that is the only healthy dish I know how to order. I try to have conversations in Thai, but they almost always end in frustration or confusion.  I eat and drink alone most evenings, every now and then enjoying the company of another American teacher who wants to (and eventually does) get the hell out of here.

Even I still sometimes have my doubts about Sawi, especially because it is so hard to leave when desired. There are so many places I want to see and so many things I want to experience in Southeast Asia, sometimes I catch myself wondering why I decided to move to the middle of nowhere in the first place. I wonder if I am digging myself into a deeper hole, losing time that I won’t get back in a place where I can’t see much or do anything at all. After feeling like this a few nights ago, I mustered up the strength to finally put down the Lonely Planet Thailand book and rushed to my Buddha-adorned journal given to me by my grandmother upon leaping into the unknown. I then read aloud to myself the scribbled details of an amazing day in Sawi. Here they are in words:

 

I was alone, like usual, sitting on a towel in the warm, dampened sand. It had just rained a few hours earlier, and the sun’s rays burned through the clouds, penetrating the Earth with immense force. It was the Fourth of July and I cracked open a can of Leo, celebrating America’s freedom on the other side of the world but somehow not feeling too far from home. The sky was an impeccable light blue, the Gulf of Thailand so brightly turquoise that the two shades of blue complimented one another in perfect harmony. The skyline was the straightest line I’d ever seen, as if I’d never seen a full 180 degrees until that moment, and I imagined the complete and utter stillness that must exist beyond eye’s sight. The breeze was so perfectly light, enough to relieve the sweat dripping from my back but not too strong to cause me to worry about a gritty, sandy beer. There were no bars or restaurants in sight, just a group of locals who occasionally muttered “farang,” and their chatter softened into a mere whisper. The islands in the distance spotted the gulf like a spots on a leopard’s coat, naturally yet perfectly placed. The sand crabs kept me company, as I would see one or two pop out every so often and scurry to their burrows in the sand. After a time of solidarity, I matched each of my breaths with the slow tide of the gulf. I fell asleep, only to be awoken an hour later from light raindrops and a rainbow in the distance.

 

Sounds nice, doesn’t it. Well, it was more than nice. It was perfect.

For every boring, uneventful day I have in Sawi, I have six wonderful ones (and they don’t all start that way).

If I hadn’t ventured into the vast wilderness with nothing but a few lines of Tinglish directions in a text message, I never would have found the beautiful beach described above.

If I hadn’t had the desire to see the beauty of this place on my own, I never would have met my good friend Bee, the only fluent English-speaking Thai woman within a 20 mile radius. I never would have been welcomed into her home as part of her family, given a private, customized tour of Sawi, or have been able to pick fresh fruit from the trees of her mother’s land. I never would’ve been able to watch her thriving 94 year old grandmother systematically shave bark into strings (Mai Klad) that wrap Thai-style sweets in banana leaves, or play with her adorable two year old son Magnum. I never would have really experienced life in rural Thailand if I hadn’t met her, or taken that last minute turn into Wat Phra That Sawi on an exceptionally hot Saturday.

A few days ago I was grading my sixth graders’ math tests, which consisted of the extra credit question: “Who is the current American president?” Their answers, among many interesting others, included: “Back City,” “Dara Cobama,” and “Barang Obamar.” I don’t think I’ve belly laughed so hard by myself in my entire life – and for a straight ten minutes! Pure, genuine laughter is indeed beauty.

If I hadn’t embraced the beauty of my classroom, which lies in the deep brown, curious eyes of my Thai students and the bright, beautiful personalities that shine through their inability to communicate with me, I wouldn’t have such a desire to be right here, right now.

Every gecko that roams the walls of my apartment has a name. Every night I race home to my balcony to see the unique picture the sky paints just for me in the form of a sunset.

If I were unable to see the beauty, I’d probably be on the next loud, rackety train out of here.

But I’m not – I am here, living life at it’s absolute fullest, and loving every minute of it. This is the difference between me and almost every other farang who comes through this town.

I will not rush to experience. I will not look further down the road than tomorrow. I am a wide open book waiting for pages to be filled with beautiful images of my everyday life abroad – whether they are written in the small town of Sawi or the bustling city of Bangkok.

Someday, when I travel back to the United States, I will recognize the beauty in all that I’d failed to see – the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, hell even the White House, because I was too stubborn to look for a highly accessible source of beauty right in my backyard.

Sometimes, to live life to the fullest, to see all of the impeccable beauty the world has to offer, all we have to do is step right into our backyard.

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It was Monday afternoon and I was mentally drained, my attention span falling behind me like dirt dust in the wind of a moving vehicle. I was introducing addition and subtraction word problems to my third graders, hoping they were retaining some of the English language in the process. I read from the workbook:

14,631 cases of dengue were reported in Sak’s hometown last year. This year the number has gone up by 11,482. How many cases of dengue have been reported this year?

“Well that’s morbid,” I thought, “Why wouldn’t they say the number of cases of dengue went down?” I wrote out the number sentence and demonstrated the correct way to solve the problem on the board. I left the actual solving to them, and I left my enthusiasm with the problem in which the monkeys plucked coconuts… they seemed happier to learn about monkeys. I stepped away from the chalkboard, feeling accomplished and ready for the day to end.

It was at this point when I walked over to my student’s desk and realized that he had a different answer than the one I worked out on my own. He pointed to my book and said, “No teacher, wrong! 6, no 5!” I looked at his work and noticed that I had incorrectly added 4 and 2 – a rookie mistake. Quickly and with a shameful smile, I transformed my 5 into a ridiculous box-shaped 6. I was thankful that I hadn’t written my answer on the chalkboard yet, and that the innocent 8 year old saved my dignity for the last 10 minutes of class.

It wasn’t until 3:00 pm when I had completely lured the children out of my classroom, and a feeling of inadequacy began to cloud my mind. I thought about how earlier that day, I was playing a review game of BINGO with my sixth graders and found out that half the class was better than me at four-digit multiplication and order of operations. I made a note to myself: work out problems before students sit in desks, not during class. I had to give them a “free space” due to my mistake. These kids are more likely to ask, “What does ‘circle the answer’ mean?’” rather than, “Is this correct?” I am less prepared to answer the latter, so most of the time it works out perfectly.

I was sweeping my classroom when a sudden wave of emotions took over, nothing new or surprising to me in Thailand. I slumped down into one of the small desks and started to pick the plastic wrapping from the corners (because they hadn’t thought to unwrap the new desks before the students sat in them). I thought to myself, “What the hell do I think i’m doing teaching algebra, when I still count on my fingers? I can’t even add 4 + 2 with complete confidence!”

I am a math teacher, and I still count with my fingers…

The feeling was eerily familiar, and suddenly I knew why.

As soon as I am outside of the boundaries of comfort, I begin to doubt my abilities. This applies to any time in my life when I began something new – a sport, a class, a major, a career, even something as simple as a hair cut – I always second-guessed myself in fear of failure. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve quit and started something new with my fingers – because there aren’t enough fingers for that. When I graduated from high school, all I wanted to do was write. My problem was that I feared blank pages with no words, a bank account with no green, an empty heart with no story to tell – and that’s where I went wrong.

“Starting over” is a pretty frequent phrase in my vocabulary, as I encountered it not only on my own but also with my family. After each divorce, there was a tendency to begin again, despite the baggage that remained deep in our hearts. With each new house, we started over in the attempt to make it “home,” and I owe my mother the world for her endless efforts. When I moved away to school, I left with the intention of really starting my own life as if it hadn’t already begun. When I decided to quit my job and move to Thailand, I felt as if I was turning back the dials on the clock without actually traveling back through time – like I was cheating the system. But it was in these “starting over” times when I learned the most about myself, even if it wasn’t my decision to make in the first place. Without all of these “beginner” phases, I would have never learned. I would have never gathered the knowledge and pure, raw wisdom that has bended, twisted, and molded me into the person I am today.

On that same Monday, my friend Jessica and I were sitting on her back porch watching the beautiful Thai sunset, the first good one in weeks, discussing her feeling of inadequacy after having the amazing opportunity to teach a yoga class on the island of Koh Tao. The studio as a whole presented a different kind of yoga, a more intense, less meditative and spiritual asana than what she is used to teaching. Jessica has years of yoga teaching experience and several certifications, but her humbling nature led her to this conclusion: “I just like beginner yoga and I love being a beginner. No matter where I am in my practice, there’s always more to learn.”

Something in her statement and our conversation as a whole made me think long and hard about beginnings, the same ones I had fretted over my entire life, the same ones I am worried about now.

Looking back at all of my “beginnings,” I now realize that all of my attempts to better myself and all of the times I unwillingly started over were not failures, because I learned from them somehow. They were mere stepping-stones, and I am still climbing those steps today. It is only now I realize that the times I avoided trying were the actual failures. 

I am okay with defining myself as a beginner teacher, because as much as I am giving the gift of knowledge to these amazing students, I am learning from them even more. In the short month I have been in Sawi, my students have taught me patience, resilience, and a little bit more about love. I am at peace with the fact that they will correct my math, and I should be excited for them when they do. There’s something equivocally amazing about these kids that I haven’t quite pinpointed yet, but whatever that “something” is makes me want to teach them with everything I have in me. This feeling of inadequacy stems from my desire to be a better teacher, not an actual fear that I am incapable. I do not know if I will continue with a career in teaching after this year in Thailand, but I can tell you one thing for which I am certain:

I care enough to try my best, to be a curious beginner, and I think that’s enough for now.

The post Beginner’s Note appeared first on tori slater.

There are many reasons why I moved to Thailand: to see the world, to immerse myself in a different culture, to make a difference, to find a passion…

And there is one reason I have yet to admit to anyone:

I came to Thailand to break my old habits.

My life back in the United States was repetitive yet lethargic. I sat at my cubicle for eight hours a day, and then I exhaustedly sat my ass on the couch while I caught up on episodes of Girls and Games of Thrones. Day after day I longingly watched Daenerys Targaryen rule her army with poise and structure, while on the other side of the television, I couldn’t grasp control of my own life. The only thing I was completely sure of was how to systematically eat ice cream out of a carton – first off the inside of the lid, and then around the edges until finally digging my way into the middle. On the weekends, I found myself drinking to oblivion in an effort to drown away the stress of the weekdays. I defended my actions with the excuse, “I am in my twenties! I should be partying and living it up while I can, even though I don’t always remember it.”

At that time, I had no clue that following this routine would lead me into an unhealthy, unhappy hole in the ground that I couldn’t climb out of. It was so easy to look at my life from the outside – I had a great job, I had an abundance of close friends, and I was (for the most part) a healthy human being. But one day, something inside of me went off like a ticking bomb that finally blasted. For the first time in a long time, I looked at my life from the inside. I took a long, hard look in the mirror and asked myself, “Where am I?”

Did I think I would have a good, well-paying job out of college? Yes. Did I think I would be living in Hoboken, partying like an animal every weekend? Yes. Did I think I would be happy doing it? Absolutely. My desire for monetary success and social escalation brought me to this exact moment, an inexplicable point of confusion.

I wasn’t happy, because I hadn’t really listened to myself when I made the choice to live my life that way. I hadn’t considered the stress, the weight, the unhealthy life that comes along with the so-called “successes” mentioned above. I was not ready to give up all of my effort to the mundane cubicle life, because the more I thought about change, the more I craved it.

And then I made an impulsive, incredible adjustment to my life, thinking Thailand would be my “fix.” All while making a difference in the lives of Thai children and gaining cultural experience, I would somehow find a way to eat healthier, rid myself of all stresses, and start meditating. Hell, I even said to myself, “It’s nice there – I’ll have the motivation to go running every day!”

If you haven’t already guessed it – that is certainly not the case. In no way did I think this move would be easy, but I did think I would have left my old habits behind with the “old me,” whoever that was. Adjusting to a new country and culture is a difficult change on its own, even harder when you add a new and unfamiliar job into the mix. It is very difficult to find good food in Sawi that isn’t fried or 70% rice noodle, it is so hot and humid that I can’t step 10 feet out of my apartment building without collecting armpit sweat, and I am so busy teaching and preparing lesson plans for my students that I have had almost no time to think about making the changes I’ve desired for myself.

This thought flew across my mind last night, as I had just finished some shrimp tom yum instant noodles and half a sleeve of Oreos while preparing today’s lesson plans. I thought about how earlier that day, one of my Thai co-teachers poked me in the belly and called me fat, because they have no filter here. I thought about how Leo, a brand of Thai beer, ran through my veins this weekend as I escaped Sawi for a glimpse of civilization. And then I thought about a passage I had recently read in my book:

 

“Unfortunately, we try to deal with the most of our problems by heading for the door, by trying to leave our immediate situation by any means we can. But our real problem- the deep down ache of the heart – doesn’t go anywhere. It travels with us. This deep-down problem is confusion.”

– Buddhism Plain and Simple, by Steve Hagen

My natural curiosity for Thai culture and Buddhism brought me to this book, which I may or may not quote repeatedly in my posts. In this excerpt, Hagen was trying to explain how dukkha, or “suffering” arises in our lives, one of them being the reason above. In summary – real problems are inescapable when you are unsure of how to reverse them, and this is when I realized:

I almost always run for the door.

Let me be clear, escaping my old habits is only one of the reasons why I am in Thailand, so in no way is my lack of success in this department urging me to quit. In fact, it only makes me want to try harder. Today, I woke up with a different attitude, because I finally realized that this particular problem was, no doubt in my mind, a very wrong reason to pack up and move across the world. I realized that if I want to make these changes in my life, I would have to look deep into my heart and understand where these desires are coming from. Therefore…

I am in my twenties, and I want to feel alive.

I want to “live it up” in a way that I can truly enjoy it. I want to thank God, whoever he is, for bringing me to this unfamiliar place, where I am blessed with an experience of a lifetime. I want to wake up every morning and be excited for my freezing cold shower, because I am lucky enough to have running water. I want to feel good, vibrant, present, and happy.

Only now am I realizing that true change comes from within, not from a simple change in lifestyle. Yes, I have moved across the world in an attempt to live meaningfully and with purpose. But no matter where I am in the world, I will always be Victoria, and only I can make the changes I wish to see in myself.

Old habits, be gone!