Our globe and its population bear innumerable strange facts. Following many people's opinion, this world shows mostly worried characteristics and symptoms nowadays. No wonder. Just try to consume and digest today's headlines and news from all around the globe. Yes, I'm experiencing very strange feelings while watching and reading the daily news.
On the other hand: It is a world with quickly bridged distances - our Mother earth is becoming smaller and smaller. Any tourist, even with little time and with only a small budget, can travel to other faraway cultures. But joining them as well as different races and religious communities requires first of all, great care, tact, instinctive feelings, empathy, and logical ideas.
The stranger whom we meet for the first time during a business meeting, for example, maybe an uncommon, odd and extraordinary guy. He may be someone from a foreign country, who speaks another language and whose skin is of another color. He may be a migrant, a restless hiker or the expatriate in our neighborhood.
The foreigner beside you and me can become a provocation or a challenge. Strangeness can become exoticism. Maybe, that's why my family and I decided to move to the Philippines. On the other hand - going abroad can open other and even better horizons. We must not feel as "a stranger in paradise". By the way, I never did!
However, a migrant bears a juxtaposition of optimism (even calculated optimism!), confused feelings, nostalgia, and homesickness. Yes guys, during the first years of my expat's life here in the Philippines, the round trip ticket was always in my mind, because no one among us can escape his native roots.
But, I am really a lucky guy. I experienced an amazing tolerance in the Philippines. A real practicing tolerance. Until now! Already, during my first business meetings, I met supportive, forbearing and broad minded people. A wonderful mix of different cultures without giving up own identities... .
The following quotation remains always in my mind: "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears!" - The British statesman and former Prime Minister Sir Winston L. Churchill (1874-1965) said this in 1940 - certainly, in a sad interrelation during World War II. Anyway, I like that remark. Blood, sweat and tears. Because of new challenges and changes - also as an expatriate in the Philippines doing business here.
Every new challenge in a strange country means a change. Changes in life are necessary and important. Let's alter or make a difference; let's put one thing for another; let's shift; let's quit one state for another; let's take fresh clothing. Let's burn the "lock fat" away. Blood, sweat and tears - and remember: nothing comes from anything.
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