Why I am who I am

Not much happened during the past week so this will be another post full of reflections and deep thoughts.  I am afraid my brain never stops working and I like to think, wonder and analyse every bit of my life. I want to use this post to reply to those people, whom I constantly meet, that seem to think my life is always easy. Those are the people that think moving, travelling, putting myself in difficult situations is as easy for me as it is for them to surround themselves with what it is familiar. I am not the only one who has chosen this way of life first of all, and then, secondly life is never easy: neither for me nor for anyone else.

Sometimes I interrogate myself on the reasons that have pushed me into leaving my country, abandoning my friends and everything that was familiar for this life. Then I give a read through any Italian newspapers and all my doubts are cleared. But despite that I realise I have chosen a difficult path. I will always be in a disadvantage. I am not a native speaker, my accent gives away my origins most of the time, I don't know the culture or their way of doing things. Sometimes this disadvantage really discourages me and puts me on the verge of going down the easiest path.

At this point many of you would ask: seriously why? I sound like a bit of masochist, don't I? Well, the answer is simple; if I haven't done all this I wouldn't have lived! For me this is life: leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar, exploring, going beyond what it is known and experience. Eleanor Roosevelt used to say 'every day do something that scares you'. I wouldn't quite put it this way, life would become a nightmare if I had to scare myself to death everyday to feel alive but the point is clear here: try to create challenges for yourself and so you will feel alive.

I was forced to leave my previous life because I was unhappy, now I found a place to be happy but everyday I try to put myself out there to do what scares me. It is scary to start a job in a language that is not yours, with people that have a completely different working mentality but, it is rewarding when your work is appreciated because you know no matter how easy the job is, you had to put much more effort into it. It is that feeling of pride, of being content with yourself and your achievements that makes you want more. I keep doing this everyday, on daily basis. For example, I run because it is challenging for someone who didn't even want to walk down the street. I want to learn riding, play an instrument, draw and write because I have never done any of these and it will be a challenge.

I was scared when I moved to Russia, when I walked into my first lecture at university. I am planning trips that will take me to remote places because I want to keep on living, experiencing, exploring and discovering. It doesn't take courage for this at all. Courage has nothing to do with this, I am not brave but only a bit foolish and curious. Wasn't someone famous who once advised young graduates to 'stay hungry and foolish'?  Being brave is completely different and I want this to be absolutely clear to everyone.

I will keep on living like this because along the way I found out so many new things about myself and the world, because I made wonderful friends and I grew up. I don't think this takes courage but only enthusiasm, enthusiasm for life and what the world has to offer. If people think that it has been easy they are wrong, it hasn't been easy and it won't be but if I hadn't had designed my life all over again all this would have never happened. This is what makes it worth to challenge yourself and be scared because the reward is twice as good.

If I am who I am I owe it to my foolishness and curiosity. "My fear is my only courage" once said Bob Marley and my fear is living like I was already dead and this is the fear that really keeps me alive.