Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hollywoodaction]

It's how you've been conditioned. My grandfather sailed around the world when he was in the navy. He had this mason jar filled with seashells that he collected on beaches around the world in the kitchen drawer that we'd sneak a peak at everytime we came for a visit. My aunt traveled to well over 100 countries on 4 continents before she was 30. Another one of my aunts lived in Germany. One of my uncles was always gone, flying between his offices in Toronto, New York, Mexico, or his factories in Vietnam. My brother studied in France. I also have cousins who live on 3 different continents (big family).

Why do you think I picked Korea? If you think you're only going to live abroad once in you're life, might as well pick a country that's halfway around the world from your hometown, no? One year, I flew west just to say I had literally flown around the world.

[ajuma]

Hollywoodaction: But, if it's "how you've been conditioned", I'd still be living in my hometown, leading a "normal" life with the standard mortgage, car payment, PTA meetings, and bowling once a week!!

[Omkara]

Well, I think you've got to have a little something in you in the first place to jump over seas.

In my case, it has required external conditions to prod me in the direction of travel. It's always a set of options that are set in front of me, not the intrinsic value alone, that gets me moving. It is usually the value of the cultural experience combined with economic and existential factors that gets me to hop a flight.

What distinguishes me from my peers is the willingness to take the risk of another culture instead of staying home, broke and bored.

I was born with the disposition, curiosity and willingness to take a risk; life has given me particular sets of choices.

In the pattern of choice is the expression of who I am, of who we are. Had I different circumstances, the choices would have been different, but the pattern the same, though externally they would appear quite different.

Had I been born into a rich family, I doubt I'd be in EFL. Yet, there is much in my life that I have been given to experience that I'd not give up for all the power and prestige in the world.

The Almighty--Necessity--has taught me the range of my choice. In so doing, I have been forced to discover and to grow. We define ourselves in relation to Necessity. We have no choice but to be ourselves--and so we choose as we choose, and become who we are: who we have always been: expressed existentially, historically, yet presently a mystery.

[Hollywoodaction]

[ajuma]

Hmmmm...it was hard to tell. You did follow up your remark with several examples!