Reflections on a Year Away

One year ago, I planned to leave Montreal to try something new. I wanted the chance to pursue some of my other interests that always seemed to be brushed aside because of my all-consuming involvement with the Tibet movement. Now I find myself back home, returning to the same work for Tibet that I was doing before I left. Running away from it all made me realize that I was on the right path – a path that will take me to India next, after my Christmas pit-stop in Montreal.

Being away from home and friends and lovers and all things familiar, gave me a lot of time for introspection and reflection on my view of life. It’s like being given a blank slate, and gives a strange sense of freedom because no one knows you. No one has conceptions of who you are and how you should behave. You can completely rid yourself of accumulated baggage – if you let go of it yourself.

One is able to construct everything: the life one wants, the people one wants to surround oneself with, and perhaps most interestingly, the person one wants to be. It’s a new context in which to give up old habits and hang-ups. It’s a situation that allows for introspection, to be able to pinpoint values, beliefs, desires and dreams, and to learn to live by them. The distance also affords one the clarity to learn from past lessons, experiences, and relationships.

I have learned that who I love and why I love them is a lot more important than who loves me. And I have learned that my love for people doesn’t diminish over distance or time.

Perhaps most importantly, I am more comfortable with the uncertainty in life because I have lived it and let it take me to places I never could have imagined.