Paradox & Expectations

The most complicated part of preparing to go to a foreign country is the paradoxes I live everyday. The simplest example of this is the great excitement I feel in anticipating my departure coupled with the great amount of grief there is in saying good-bye to everything familiar and to all the people that mean so much to me. Our instructors gave us this great visual for the paradoxes we are experiencing. Imagine a person standing in the center of the room. Put a large stretchy band around the waist of this person and stretch it out in two different directions. On one end of the stretchy band are the “yeah!” feelings I am having. On the other end are the “yuck!” feelings. Both these feelings live in tension around the center of the person. Don’t stop there. Add another stretchy band and stretch it out in opposite directions. This tension represents the expectations I have versus the reality I will face. The close my expectations are to reality the less tension I will experience. Now add another band with the expectations of nationals on one end and the expectations still coming from the States. The stressful thing about this tension is I don’t have any control over the expectations that others have of me. All I can do is figure out healthy ways to deal with this tension. Alas, I live a paradox in the midst of all these tensions. This leads to my next entry…conflict management.