14 Mar Time flies
Hej hej,
Time flies.
More than 6 months already that I arrived here. Tomorrow I´ll be travelling to Stockholm to attend a “Mid-Term training” of my European Volunteer Service project. I remember going there in October; meeting other young people from different countries volunteering throughout Sweden; discussing about goals, fears and expectations; having a glimpse about Swedish culture; walking through Gamla Stan…
Time flies.
Tomorrow I will meet the same people and I will be walking through the same streets. But things have changed. I now know a bit more about Swedish culture. We will still be talking about goals and expectations, but it´ll also be time for evaluation. Over the past 6 months, a lot happened. I will probably have to find synonyms, be creative to express how I feel, come up with new goals. I will probably be asked “How did it go? Did you manage to reach the objectives? What did you do?”.
Time flies.
Manage what? Objectives? Measures… Now I´d say that measuring is not important. I understand that in our contemporary world, everything “needs” to be measured, or rather is expected to be “measurable”. But according too much importance to evaluation might lead you to miss the point and be too rigid. Let me explain. How would you deal with the unexpected then? Where is the joy that lays in the unexpected? Isn´t it precisely in the unexpected that we learn the most? I remember writing down goals and lists of things to do. Don´t get me wrong. It didn´t lost touch with the reality or neither run away from it. Nor I tried to forget the present moment or any sense of time. I embraced it.
Time flies. I have done barely nothing that was written on this list. I can tell you now that I´m pretty sure I won´t realize most of the remaining things on this list. Not because I was or I am lazy. But because this list was making me missing the point. I believe that Life – and to some extend what the EVS experience represents – is to be lived, felt, experienced. It cannot be reduced to a list of things to accomplish. We shouldn´t keep ourselves busy with “TO DO LISTS” (believe me, I´m the to-do-list expert 😉 ). We should simply live. Now.
Time flies. 6 months. No nostalgia. No regret. 4 more months to go synonyms of good moments to be lived, new people to meet, places to discover, joy to be felt. Much more than can be described in a simple post.
Time flies, so live now. And if you really want to make an EVS, go for it now, apply now! Time flies and tomorrow will be too late.
Stop for a moment, breathe and smile 🙂 You´re alive 😀
Malika
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