David Grajal

Most people have an strong set of core beliefs and some goals in life and fight to achieve them. The people around me pursue finish their studies, get a job, locate a partner and raise a family.

In comparison I’m in such stage on life I don’t have any consistent objetive in my life. My beliefs and goals change faster than my environment. I’m curious about everything, there are tons of interesting skills to have or topics to learn about.

Is this a problem?

It’s really easy to influence me to change my beliefs and life goals. When I read something that seems logical I accept what is written for granted without further thinking. The consequence: what I think about a topic today can be totally different tomorrow.

My mind is extremely open minded and lazy. It’s easier to accept what others think than work to have a personal opinion. Not only I have very bad memory but sometimes I have extremely simple thoughts. Most of the time my thoughts are similar to Homer Simpson’s than Goethe’s.

In consequence I don’t have strong personal opinions about anything. I’m a son of Internet, suffering an information overload, reading too much and not spending enough time to ask myself what is my real opinion about what I’m reading.

Do you have the same problem?

I visited Spain for a couple of days after living abroad for almost half a year, and obviously I was eager to see again my family and friends. It was also good to taste again my grandmother Spanish food. After eating huge amounts of rice in Asia and a combination of beer, pretzels and sausages in Germany, It was so good to eat the kind of food my body is better adjusted to. Jamón and Paella.  Is it there food more Spanish?

Paella!

What was interesting was my reaction to be exposed again to the language. I was completely used to live in countries where I didn’t understand the language. In this time I discovered I really like to be able to completely disconnect from what surrounds me when I’m in public spaces.

In contrast, in Spain my brain was constantly working, catching conversations I should not pay attention to. I got tired of understand everything. I was in the streets sneaking into other people conversations. I shared complete conversations on buses and trains. I got completely frustrated. I could’t switch off my brain and It was exhausting.

Another interesting thing was realizing that doesn’t matter what you do, the world change but only if you want to accept the changes. I changed a lot in this last year. I’ve been traveling and I had the opportunity to become influenced. I become a lot more open minded sharing pieces of my life with interesting, silly and funny people from all around the world. I’ve living immerse in a completely different culture and I’ve questioned lots of things that I usually gave for granted. All in all I realize we are small persons in a big world and each one of us have different dreams. Each one pursue they dreams in a different way and all of them are valid because there is always a reason behind. Looking back to how I was one year ago, I can easily see that I changed a lot. However all my friends continue being the same way. Of course this is not bad but I didn’t realize how much I really have change until I returned to my hometown.

In conclusion, I really like to be living in a place where I don’t really belong. Yes, you lose contact with your family and friends but It make you more conscious. It’s easier to question why the things are like they are. You become more critical about what it is around you. And I feel more positive and comfortable with myself.