-From How You Were Raised?
Daglig skriveoppfordring
What’s something you do completely differently from how you were raised?
There are actually many things I do differently from how I was raised, but the greatest difference is probably how I choose to see other people.
I grew up surrounded by quite a lot of negativity towards people who were different – different professions, cultures, races and religions. There were prejudices I was somehow expected to inherit simply because they belonged to the world around me.
But even as a child, something in me resisted that.
When I was around ten years old, Vietnamese boat refugees began arriving in my town. Instead of being afraid of people who looked different, spoke differently and came from a culture I knew nothing about, I became curious.
I wanted to understand them.
I began learning Vietnamese. And I became something of a young advocate for the Vietnamese families who had arrived.
I even helped write letters to their families back in Vietnam for people who couldn’t write themselves – simple letters telling mothers, fathers and relatives thousands of kilometres away that their loved ones had arrived safely in a country far to the north.
Looking back, I think something fundamental in me was shaped during those years.
I chose curiosity over prejudice.
Instead of asking, “Why aren’t they like us?”, I became interested in understanding why we are different.
Different histories create different people. Geography, poverty, war, religion, family, education, opportunity and culture all shape how we understand the world.
Once you become genuinely curious about those differences, judging people becomes much harder.
Through my Vietnamese friends, I was also introduced to Buddhist philosophy.
I don’t consider myself religious, but many Buddhist values became important to the way I wanted to live: respect for living beings, gratitude, compassion, simplicity, awareness and trying not to build a life entirely around wanting more.
And that is probably where I differ most from the values I grew up around.
Not impressed by status!
A master’s degree doesn’t automatically make someone wise. A prestigious job title doesn’t make someone a good person. Money doesn’t tell me whether someone is successful, and perfection has never told me whether someone is happy.
But character does.
How you treat the person who can do absolutely nothing for you tells me far more about you than your title ever will.
Over the years, travelling and meeting people from very different backgrounds has reinforced that belief.
I have met people who, measured by Western standards, have very little. Yet some of them have seemed extraordinarily rich to me.
Rich in time.
And in family.
Rich in generosity.
And in laughter.
Rich in their ability to appreciate what they already have.
And sometimes remarkably free.
That has made me question our conventional definition of success.
We create lives filled with possessions and obligations and then have to spend enormous amounts of our time maintaining them. We build invisible walls around ourselves – mortgages, expectations, careers, status and the constant pressure to achieve more.
Sometimes our comfortable lives can quietly become A4-sized prisons of our own making.
Norway is my home
I live in Norway, one of the world’s wealthiest societies, and I recognise the enormous value of the security and welfare that provides. But living in a wealthy society has also taught me that material security and human richness are not necessarily the same thing.
Today, I don’t want my worth measured only by how productive I am, what position I hold or what I contribute to a system.
I am a human being before I am a resource.
I want my life to be measured in other ways.
By whether I was curious instead of judgemental.
And by whether I treated people as equals.
By whether I remained open enough to learn from cultures different from my own.
And by whether I noticed the people around me.
By whether I loved deeply.
And by whether I was actually present for this strange, beautiful and sometimes painfully short experience we call life.
So perhaps the biggest thing I do differently from how I was raised is very simple:
I was taught to notice the differences between people.
I chose to become curious about them instead.
And that choice has shaped almost everything about the person I became.
