Day 27: How have you changed in the past 2 years?

Hmmm…not much as far as positive changes go. Sadly.

I have grown a lot more jaded in the last couple of years. I’ve learned to not trust people blindly, and especially not to trust people just because they claim to be Christians. In fact, I’ve sadly come to the point of being hesitant to work with people who say they are Christians, because I have seen so many who are worse than their secular counterparts. My beliefs haven’t changed, I myself am still a Christian, I am just a lot less inclined to trust someone because they say they’re a Christian.

I suppose this next one could be looked at as a positive or a negative. For me, I think it tends more toward the positive. I have learned to not be so bothered by what people think of me. Most of the people I know would think that I have not cared my whole life, but that’s not true. I just acted like I didn’t care. The truth was, I really cared. Especially with people I thought were close friends. And I would do what my friends wanted. I would listen to the music they liked, read the books and watch the movies/tv shows they liked. And now, I don’t care. I had a few people I thought I was close to who decided to be pretty nasty about their feelings about me. It really affected me a lot. Until I decided it didn’t. I am still sometimes bothered by such things, but in general, I don’t care. If someone decides they’re going to be toxic, I am done. I may give a couple of chances, but that’s about it. I used to worry about how I could heal the relationship, and I would put way too much effort into it, as well as compromising and making it all about the other person. I had several friendship where I was always the one reaching out, and I felt like I was the only one who cared at all. And I’ve reached the point where, if it isn’t a mutual friendship, I’m not going to keep pushing it. It isn’t healthy, and it really needed to stop.

One really positive thing though, about not being so worried about what people think is that I had about 3 seconds of wondering what people would say when they found out I was putting effort and money (and an extra month in India…) into bringing another puppy and a kitten home. I knew that a lot of people wouldn’t approve, but I didn’t particularly care. It made me happy, it made Leaf and Marius happy (I got my Mom back to India, which she’d said would not happen again that soon… :~P), and it didn’t matter to me what anyone else thought.

I’ve lost a lot of the passion I had for missions/volunteering (mostly for reasons stated earlier when I was talking about Christians), but I want that to change back in the next year. I know that missions are not bad simply because I’ve had bad experiences, but it’s the whole “once bitten, twice shy” thing. And I had 2 years of negative, so that makes it more like “4 times bitten, 8 times shy”. Doesn’t flow nearly so well though :~)

I’ve reached a point where I’m not concerned about money. I try to be careful, because I haven’t had a regular job for 2 years, but if I there is something I want to do/buy, I don’t worry about it. Living frugally the majority of the time helps there, because when I don’t spend money willy-nilly, I have it set aside for things I really want which may cost a little more.

I learned that I am able to travel dozens of hours by Indian train with a sick kitten. May not sound like such a big deal, but it’s actually a lot more complicated than it sounds. I appreciated knowing that I was capable of it. And basically, if I can travel across India by bus and train, I should be able to handle pretty much anywhere. Especially since I won’t usually have a sick kitten.

I’m a lot more confident. A couple of years ago, I’d have been totally freaked out to couchsurf with so many complete strangers, especially in different countries where I didn’t always even have a phone. But it was (mostly) really good. I also am better at making choices. I still have times where I struggle with decision making, but it isn’t a constant anymore the way it used to be. And I’ve learned to get over bad decisions a lot faster.

I guess that’s a pretty good overview of how I’ve changed in the last year. I’m  happy about the good, and I have the next year to hopefully correct the bad.