Survival Fact #3: You Are Still Yourself (Only More)

Wow! A whole week since my last post? That's not good, but the circumstances aren't so bad. A new promotion at work is going to give me the time and resources I need to really concentrate on this labor of love. I want to thank everyone who has been so kind. Apparently people really like this blog, so I owe it to them to never fall so far behind again!

That said....

In the last installment, we looked at the symptoms associated with culture shock and where they come from. Tomorrow's post entitled "Chill Methods" will address how to slay this gorgon without risking your inner Perseus. But today, I would like to point out some helpful facts in response to some comments I have been receiving regarding the perceived loss of identity associated with culture shock. It happens. We sometimes feel as though our whole being has melted away and we're replaced with someone else.

I know I felt it, and unfortunately for me, I didn't have the darndest idea as to what was happening to me. Culture shock was just a humorous reference to someone who couldn't adapt to their new surroundings, or so I thought.... In my mind I was doing just fine blaring Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" every morning as my computer woke me up. So what if I didn't like that song before? At that moment, it was the best piece of music I had ever heard.

Yeah, I had it that bad...

Still do in some ways! Right now as I type this, I have a madman's playlist queued up on my Winamp. Patsy Cline followed by Jane's Addiction and rounding it off with some classic Dr. Dre. Before I moved here, I was pretty much an Alternative and Jam Band (Phish, Dave Matthews, etc.) kind of guy. In the year I've been here my (legally acquired) MP3 collection has gone from a few hundred to literally many thousands of songs. Why? Maybe I was (am) over identifying with my own American culture as a weird defense mechanism. But the side effect to that symptom is that I now have a much broader appreciation of music that will probably stay with me for life.

So it's not all so bad. Like the growing pains all of us have to experience when we are young, the secret is turning it around to your benefit. Though in my case it wasn't an excuse to get out of gym class, it was a deeper love of an art I had previously only used as background noise.

So in summary, don't be afraid that you are disappearing. You aren't. Whether you like it or not, you are becoming more cultured and the person you are is becoming the multi-faceted person you were meant to be. Tomorrow, we will talk about good ways of maintaining your tranquility. But for now, those of you who need something to meditate on,

I give you this truism....

Just think about it, you'll get it....

See?

You're Welcome!