Of irritations and surprises

To you know those moments when you learn something that changes your life drastically?

I had many of those moments within the past 10 days and it rocked my world.

One thing is this, the concept of irritations and surprises--it works like this


Surprise (Excess)

Norm

Irritation (Deprevation)

Everyone has certain norms and expectations in their lives, usually they are connected with family, friends and culture.
If something happens during the day that exceeds our norms, we will be surprised, if it falls short of our norms, we are irritated.

Example from my life:

When I meet new people here in the States, they are usually very friendly right away, which surprises me since in my own culture people would be a lot more reserved.
The friendship progresses and since we were on such friendly terms right from the start, I open myself up and expect to go deeper in our friendship because that's what people do where I grew up once they give up their reservations and become friendly. Now they share deep friendships. Here I often overwhelm people with my openness, while I am irritated because they are not becoming as vulnerable and open.

All our days are full of these situations and it is good to know that these are natural things based on our differences.

I realize that I can't jump to my conclusion and go so far because people are not ready for that yet.


I am only beginning to understand how different I am from the culture I live in and it frustrates me, it hurts me and it reveals to me sides and evils within my heart that I never knew were there.
My professor encouragement me by making so clear that I am just going through the most natural thing that happens when you live in a different culture. Now is the time to recognize my depression and to find ways of growing out of the depths that I have been finding myself in for many months now.

God still loves me, even though I seem incapable of getting my act together.