Wrong or Just Different?

When you move overseas, your life changes dramatically. Your expectations need to be tempered or you will become disappointed easily. You cannot expect things to happen instantly, or rely on any timeframe necessarily. And you cannot be self-sufficient, at least not to the degree that you were in your home country. 

Nothing can quite describe the feeling of helplessness I experience on a regular basis. Whereas in North America, there may be one person to do a particular job, here there are 5 or more people doing that same job. No one knows what anyone else is doing, so it’s quite a process to get anything done. During these times of frustration, I try to remind myself of what a wise man once said. He asked the question about other cultures: “Is it wrong, or is it just different?” Just because something isn’t done the way I would do it does not mean that it’s being done wrong. Perhaps “my” way wouldn’t work here. Besides, I am not in my home country - I am a guest. And if it’s not wrong, I have to accept that my preferences don’t matter in these scenarios. And who knows, by the time I go back “home” I might think that we are the ones doing things the wrong way! :)