We are the change we are waiting for!

I’ve never really liked to travel by plane as a teenager and especially not when I was alone. A lot of fear involved in that! Now when I started to work, the work required me to do some trips to Portugal, Canada… so it obliged me somehow to take a different perspective on that and flights became more and more part of it.

I did love to come in contact with different people, cultures, hear about their journey and experiences of life. So I worked much more to overcome my fears and continue my journey, rather than trying to find another direction of the job, having to travel less.

In these travels, America became more and more, a frequent destination and made me come in contact with Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, Chicago… providing me with a good view of America. It created some kind of curiosity and it is always a pleasure meeting up with local people. Although quite often the ones I would have long conversations and contact with, would not be native Americans.

If there is one place that literally blew me away, out of all of them so far, it’s Washington, DC, that I had the privilege to go to, in 2013.

I guess it is the safest place in the US, there was really no place in the tourist area where I could go, that there wasn’t a security guy having his eyes on me, never seen that till such a level. Now I did feel safe there, walking around day and night. The biggest influences Washington, DC had on me, is due to its monuments and memorials.

I had heard of some historical events, now I didn't know much detail about them and walking around there, seeing these monuments and memorials, and at some of them getting a chance to talk with survivors, really provided me a completely different view of the US I had seen so far.

One that marked me very heavily, is the memorial wall for the Vietnam war, where the wall was huge and the names of the victims were written extremely small. I was extremely shocked by that and could not get how cruel people could be to have done something like that in history.

In a more positive direction, I was of course very inspired by all sorts of quotes around there from;

"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion." - Abraham Lincoln

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." - Theodore Roosevelt

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt

And probably the one I appreciate most,

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

All speeches I had heard from especially President Obama, started to make much more sense as well, after this personal discovery from my side. Although he told them for the American citizen, I think they can in fact rely to any kind of situation I find myself in.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” - Barack Obama.

If we believe in ourselves and start to make the change we would like to see in the world, we can create beautiful things!

I personally believe that a travel trip, or journey is much more inspiring by the people I’m with or get in contact with, than by the location I visit. So I’ve always preferred to travel with great people, rather than to what some might call great places. Now I do have to admit, that travel, whether alone or in good company, provides me a different point of view on the world and that alone can inspire very positively.

Thanks America and especially the people that crossed my journey, for showing me that inspiring direction!

I’ve made one of my best changes in my life so far in 2014, that can be read here!


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