Judgmental

    I recently (May 18-26) attended a service trip to Guatemala. We stayed at a local orphanage and opened a clinic everyday for a week to provide basic medical care to the local residents. It was a fantastic experience that changed how I view things for the better. I will also being doing more trips like this in the future and am now more than ever excited to finish my degree and advance.
   So what changed? Well to begin with it made me realize I was judgmental of hispanics here in America.  I had never liked the idea of how many shops and restaurants they had opened in the small town I spent most of my childhood in. I felt there were taking over the town and trying to change it. Their stores were over crowded and felt dirty to me. The excessive signage seemed a little extreme for me as well. I didn't realize how much I despised the culture until I returned from Guatemala and actually missed the stores and taquieras. I realized walking around a Tienda in my hometown how much I had avoided and looked down on these shops and people before I had ventured to Guatemala.
    This was a hard thing for me to realize and admit to. I have always prided myself on being open and accepting of everything, ideas, cultures, etc. I liked to think I was accepting of people and their beliefs, but coming home and truly being acceptable of the Guatemalan culture made me realize how much I had Judged the Mexican culture.
   Being in Guatemala for only a week I fell in love. I could move there and never come back. I would miss some of our luxuries in America and would have to adjust to the life there. I believe it would be rejuvenating to relax and not focus so much on frivolous things.  The Guatemalans inspire me because they hold what's really valuable at heart unlike us Americans who tend to become sidetracked easily. I love the simplicity and realism in their lives and was the happiest I believe I have ever been while I was their. My attitude was calmer, I enjoyed the simplest things more and didn't focus on the luxuries.
     Now that I have had the valuable lesson about myself that I didn't know I needed I will be open minded about everything I can and be honest with myself when I don't think I can be. I will also work to change my view if I don't feel I can accept something. I also plan to learn Spanish. I have come to see the language as beautiful. I believe that is about all for now. :)

Update to 2013

        Well I have not ranted or raved for almost two years on here. Maybe I have learned to be content or maybe I completely forgot about it and have been tied up with life. The later is the most honest, I continue to rant and rave. Well in the last two years I have changed a lot! I am currently entering my last semester of nursing school (graduate Dec. 14)!! I have also learned a lot and changed some of my views on things. I am not a different person just changed. As we learn we evolve, mostly our thinking evolves but that is what changes us. I see some things differently and have learned to look at others in a new light. I started college almost four years ago with a specific (and small minded) view of the world. I have learned that this is not the best way to think or view things. One needs to be open to all possibilities.
     I used to pride myself on being open minded and able to accept the world as it is and even try to improve it instead of fight it. I have come to realize recently that I never truly was open minded back then. I have been slowly progressing over the last four years but I now realize I am just skimming the surface and have a long way to go to be fully open minded and content with myself as I believed I was. For instance my previous post about abortion is ludicrous! everything I said was pretty much contradictory. I was saying don't use it as birth control but yet I was! I now actually know where I stand for the time being. It is wrong to use it as birth control, I still strongly believe that. I do understand some people don't see that as what they are doing and it is not my place to judge them but to educate them and help them make the right decisions for themselves. I do feel that my husband and I are not in a place to have more children and I don't believe we want to have more unless we adopt, so we are taking precautions. The correct thing to do in my opinion. I also feel that it is not necessarily a good thing that we created abortion. I have come to this conclusion on my own and feel even without a religious aspect that it is not right. It is against nature to destroy a life. However this is my own opinion on the action. I will never try to make that decision for another woman and only hope to help educate her to make her own opinion and decision.
  Well small vent over and will write more on other epiphanies of recent ventures later. :-)