Goodbye, Zamora.

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 A Colombiano, a Brazileño, and a Canadiense walk into a Mexicano salsa club.

Sometimes I struggle with the idea of definitive right and wrong. I don’t think it’s sensible, the question we often pose for ourselves—”Did I make the right decision?“—, because I think it’s rare that we can answer it with any sort of certainty or truth, and all we can accomplish by really trying to, is more uncertainty, and often, insecurity in ourselves and our actions.

The house was full— not a single empty booth or table in sight, band jamming on stage to a fast-paced rhythm-heavy Mexican salsa, bartenders squeezing through the quick-stepping dancing couples, and an energy in the air that could be felt in your lungs with each breath, like a numb tingling excitement.

With millions of moments happening in millions of places around the world, and therefore perhaps just as many possibilities available to us in deciding where to live our lives, can we really say that any decision we make about where to be in any given moment is definitively right or wrong in the long run?

The thing is that the world, its people, and every part of it— in every beautiful corner of it— is composed of the same matter. Just in new and different combinations. I believe that no matter where we are, we hold the possibility for all the same experiences— happiness, sadness, love, loneliness, excitement, boredom, etc. etc. etc— and really the only difference there is from place to place is in the form of composition of matter. The reason we feel changes in ourselves when we move from place to place, is really about our life before that point, our experiences, the familiarity we already have, and chance.

She was a shitty dancer.

Realistically, the only thing we can do is try to be aware of ourselves and our situations, and then make the best guess we can as to what is the right thing to do moving forward.

1. Accept uncertainty.

Recently I had to make a difficult decision. In light of this, my dad gave me some cookies of advice in the form of “quick threes” *

*Sets of 3 correlating questions or ideas that can help us in specific or general real-life difficult situations.

The first and second sets of “quick threes” he gave me follow:

When I was really thinking about them, I found these questions— as basic as they seem— really hard to answer. Every time I tried to answer one, the voice of someone else came into my head; after days of listening to what other people thought and wanted, I was having trouble finding my own opinion.

2.Listen to yourself.

And although I was able to take away some valuable insight from the first two, I think the most beneficial quick 3 for me was the third. It comes in the form of a metaphor:

“At times, our journey can be like a road that winds around corners, has steep hills up and down, and long straight stretches. Sometimes we can’t tell if we are struggling on the hills rounding the corner, or barrelling down the straight stretches, and we ask ‘how do we know when we need to stop and change directions?'”

Quick 3 to help you decide:

1.Sometimes we miss the scenery if we are going too fast.

2.We learn best when we struggle.

3.It always feels good to accelerate out of the corners.

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After 10 minutes spent weaving through the crowd, they found 2 empty seats in a little corner on the second floor, next to a railing overlooking the stage band.  The ambient light in the club appeared to flow in and around the space, swirling with the dancing couples and colouring them with a warm yellow-orange-red energy. And not before long, the three of them were a part of it.

In the universal language of dance, she was a baby, speaking in broken talk like mess up n not be fluently things + crawling. But in her baby eyes you could see that to her, this place was another world. And really, it was many. A building full of people composed of them. Each person in their own reality, with their own present motivations and past experiences. Their own lives, and their own reasons for deciding to be there.

It was a good night. She was happy. And because of that, the thoughts of what could’ve been didn’t come. In that moment, the decisions she had made to get there, had been right ones.

How we feel in the present, and the experiences we accumulate over time completely affect the view we have of our past (“hindsight” is the word). It’s not a question of whether we made the right decisions, it’s how we feel in this moment of our lives, and if that happens to be unhappy, why? and how can we change it.

Now for the third and final of my “quick three” three for making a difficult decision:

3.Make a decision, then move on.

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What I had to decide in February was whether to stay and fulfill my contract in Zamora, or leave. It wasn’t easy. Sometimes I feel ashamed that I quit, but I still feel it was the best for me. Shout-out to anyone in Zamora who is reading this, lots of love always to the Culturlingua crew <3.

Now I’m in Mexico City. Staying in a hostel and taking some Spanish classes. Meeting even more amazing people and livin’ la vida loca.

I’m enjoying it.

Anyway this post was to help myself gather my thoughts and realize that it’s okay to be confused about life. Life is crazy. If you can be okay with not knowing all the answers, and remain happy, well that’s all that really matters. I’ve always been a fan of this postsecret submission—

Live compassionately and love generously.

Everybody wants to rule the world. For kicks.