Dear reader,
A couple of days back, on 21 July, I moved to New York after living in Nepal for the last 19 years, and the experience here has been challenging.
I was expecting it wouldn’t be that bad because I had moved multiple times while living in Nepal and lived on my own for most of it.
But as it turns out, the US is nothing like Nepal. Everything is so different here; the people, the culture, the ways of doing things, diversity, and every single thing.
I haven’t been experiencing homesickness (yet), but it has been challenging.
Naturally, I’m not as confident as I used to be back in Nepal, I constantly get confused while using the subway, street, and avenue numbers, shopping in the supermarket stores where there are hundreds of types of one single food item.
In Nepal, there used to primarily be cows, buffalo, and soy milk. In the US, there’s whole milk, 2% milk, low-fat milk, organic milk, skimmed milk, raw milk, lactose-free milk, and maybe 20 more types.
It has been challenging to adapt.
Initially, I had been stressing about the time that I’m taking to learn things but I have been reminding myself the fact that this is the process.
This struggle of adapting is how I will adapt, I’ll have to go through it. There’s no other way (unless I go back to Nepal).
And I think this is applicable in so many aspects of life.
There are many times when we have to learn about a new thing or start something that we’ve never done before. And in those times, we should accept that we will struggle with it. Nobody is born an expert at anything. Every single person has to learn things from the very basics. And we will have to go through that process to make meaningful progress.
So that’s what I’ll do, I’ll keep learning and not beating myself up until I’m comfortable living and doing things in the American way.
I think this will be an interesting post to look back at a few years down the line.
Here’s the lesson for the week.
Takeaway: It’s okay to suck at things. If you’re struggling with something, know that this is the process. Keep going and in some time, you will have progressed. You might not realize it right away but someday in the future, you’ll be like “Oh wow, I used to be such an amateur at this.”
This week’s question for you: How often do you feel like you’re really struggling with something? How does it make you feel?
I’ll write again next week.
See you, my friend.
Take care!
Warmly,
Suraj
