Okay, brace yourselves for the revelation I'm about to give you...Honduran culture is very different from what we're use to. You probably already knew that. Moving forward.
Americans, for the most part, are always in a hurry. Our schedules are so packed with stuff that we have little time for error. Taking a five minute break means you'll be five minutes late for whatever is next on your list. And oh, we can't be late. Early is on time, on time is late, and late is left...right? This is what we live by, or at least it was drilled into my head as a child.
Honduras? Complete opposite. The rooster is their alarm clock (or at least it was for me when I was there). Schedules? Who needs them? They'll get changed at least 7 times during the first half of the day. It wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't even a Spanish word for "early" or "on time."
While I was there, I was forced to live in the moment. I couldn't get distracted by what would happen later that day or later that week because it was unknown. I'm sure this concept will really start to wear on me about mid-July, but for right now I love it.
Think about it. How many minutes or hours do we waste planning our schedules and worrying about what we'll do in the future? I feel like the last three years of my life I've been concentrated on what I'm going to do when I'm out of school or what I'm going to do next break. When the end of school draws near, what's the first thing we do? Start counting down the days, right? We're so focused on getting to the end that we don't pay attention to the middle.
But, the middle is where life is. I just wonder how many missed opportunities I had because I was too focused on the end. Forget counting down the days I have left in lab. I want to live right here, right now making the best of every moment.
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