Life here in the Philippines can be difficult. Sometimes I really feel like a fish out of water. Or more accurately like a stranger in a strange land. The simplest things that you’ve done all your life you now have to do completely differently, like washing dishes or clothing. You, the reader, probably have a dish washer. I don’t have one, I don’t have hot running water, and sometimes I don’t even have cold running water. If I want to wash dishes with hot water I have to boil it. Washing clothing; you, the reader, probably have a washing machine that does it all for you, then you toss it in the dryer. Maybe in summer you hang it on the line. I have a washer, but it only does the agitating, and sometimes we don’t have electricity and in that case I wash by hand. But even when I do have electricity I still have to drain the washer and ring the clothes out before putting them on the line. No option of a dryer in my eternal summer. And rainy season I have to hang things in the bathroom or carport to dry. Now these are not exactly hardships, but when they are not the way you were taught to do things, and as far as you knew the way you were taught was the only way, it’s stressful.
So what do you do when you find yourself confronted with one million plus things that are different and require you to think differently? You do it. You adapt, adjust, change, or go crazy. I’ve seen expatriates who try to change the Philippines instead of letting the Philippines change them. They are angry, frustrated, and sometimes outraged. Ever heard the term “kicking against the goads”? A goad is a stick used to direct cattle, to prod them and get them where they are supposed to go. So kicking against that would hurt, and that’s all these angry, unchanging people are doing; hurting themselves. And for the first year we lived here that’s what I did. I suffered from the heat because I wanted it to suddenly stop. I suffered at doctors visits because they do things completely different here. I suffered in housework because different things were required.
But thank God I changed. When I was younger I memorized the Serenity Prayer, and without realizing it I began to live it. Now I have peace where I had stress and anxiety. Nothing changed here except me. And my husband has admitted that he noticed the change, and that serene me made life at home better.
"Serenity Prayer" written by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
GOD, grant me the serenity
to accept the things
I cannot change,
Courage to change the
things I can, and the
wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the
pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this
sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right if I
surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in
the next.
Amen
So what do you do when you find yourself confronted with one million plus things that are different and require you to think differently? You do it. You adapt, adjust, change, or go crazy. I’ve seen expatriates who try to change the Philippines instead of letting the Philippines change them. They are angry, frustrated, and sometimes outraged. Ever heard the term “kicking against the goads”? A goad is a stick used to direct cattle, to prod them and get them where they are supposed to go. So kicking against that would hurt, and that’s all these angry, unchanging people are doing; hurting themselves. And for the first year we lived here that’s what I did. I suffered from the heat because I wanted it to suddenly stop. I suffered at doctors visits because they do things completely different here. I suffered in housework because different things were required.
But thank God I changed. When I was younger I memorized the Serenity Prayer, and without realizing it I began to live it. Now I have peace where I had stress and anxiety. Nothing changed here except me. And my husband has admitted that he noticed the change, and that serene me made life at home better.
"Serenity Prayer" written by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
GOD, grant me the serenity
to accept the things
I cannot change,
Courage to change the
things I can, and the
wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the
pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this
sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right if I
surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in
the next.
Amen