European-ization

How difficult is it to get used to your own country? Yes, do you need to get used to your own country is actually the question. And it goes beyond just the fact that there are potholes on the road, or the traffic is beyond imaginable control.
Travelling abroad and living there for a period of time, as little as a year, not only opens up your thinking horizon and cultivates you to take on bigger challenges with higher levels of difficulty, it also accustoms you to a certain set of variables that are accessible to you in your new environment. It is quite possible that many-a-times these variables may not be of the set that you want in your scheme of things, but most often it expands the range of possibilities that are available around the globe, such that your expectation levels rise. It is these higher and wider expectation levels that cause the conflict when you come back to your home country. You begin to compare what you have and what you can have for every little thing, if not consciously then definitely unconsciously in your brain. You no longer want the best brand of muesli in the country, but that one particular brand that you were exposed to abroad, irrespective of the fact that it may or may not be as good. Maybe you don't even realise that using your bank account online involves the same method as it did abroad, as you seem confused despite the fact that you have used this account for years before you left and also while you were there. If used well, you could turn this comparison into an advantage - for you and everyone around you. Look at what you have and benchmark that with what is possible and start filling the gaps. Your advantage is the time that you spent outside your home country. You reason to be back should be to bring what you have seen to your home country so that your country can experience a bit of what you experienced.
Don't look at the gaps as what is missing, look at it as what can be added. Don't look at the world around you as lagging behind, look at it as a runner sprinting to finish the race. Just as you'd add a souvenir to your house, add one to your future. Be the change.

Luck or Life?

So does luck have anything to do in your life? Do you always land up at places because you work towards it and that is exactly where you are supposed to be, or are there times when you reach somewhere even when you weren't headed that way?
Writing this from my little apartment in Monaco I am confident enough to say that luck has a large role to play in things that happen in life. Looking back a few years, I had no idea that I would be 'sent' to Monaco for a year. Yes, I think I am on a mission and I have been sent here by God, or whosoever sits up there, to experience a little of life outside my comfort zone.
It would be wrong to say that luck just happens. Luck works towards what it wants to achieve in your life. So, there is you working on your life, planning it and then there is luck that is working on your life and planning it. At most times the two plans meet, but often there are situations when the plans do not coincide, resulting in the 'bad luck' or 'good luck' moments.
Just like there is no 'bad stress' and 'good stress', there is no 'bad luck' and 'good luck'. Whether you call stress bad or good depends on how it gets you to react in life and similarly what you call luck good or bad depends on how it makes you react in life. It is human nature to blame luck for things that don't happen according to our plans. But do we sit and notice that when good things do happen to our plans, it is also because of what luck has been planning for you? Well, that is normally just celebrated with a little jump in the air, a click of the feet and, "I'm just lucky". Yes you are, but you're also a horrible planner and that one person sitting up there saved you from falling into the ditch!
So sitting in my little apartment in Monaco I am actually just a horrible life planner. I thank that one up there for saving me from falling into the ditch. Or was I already in the ditch and he pulled me out before I sunk deeper? Hmmm, I guess I will never know that one, but I can just look forward to many more such moments when he grabs my hand and saves my life!