Mental Exercise: Practicing Culture Shock

For the next month before I leave I am trying to mentally prepare for culture shock.   Here’s one way I’m trying to stretch my brain for the marathon:

When I experience something “ridiculous” or something I reflect negative judgement upon in my own culture, I want to try to turn it around into something positive.  What I might view as out of this world might be someone else’s reality.

So, from this day forward, when I find myself about to judge something, I want to turn my thoughts around, reword them and simply rethink.  I want to challenge myself to see the beauty in what I might not categorize as “beautiful”.

 In other words,  I want to try to understand, I want to gain perspective.

Now, this is a lot easier said than done (especially since many of our judgments pass while we aren’t consciously aware of what we’re doing).  But when I find myself about to ridicule a person or situation I want to see beyond my judgement.

For example, instead of pointing out an atrocious outfit I could rethink the atrocity of the outfit as interesting and unique and that mere rewording of an idea elicits a whole  myriad of questions..it sparks a curiosity!  A judgement typically scoffs at the situation, but this exercise forces one to dig deeper and appreciate the beauty in differences.

Be curious, not judgmental

-Walt Whitman