The Struggle is Worth It

Now that I’ve been living in a foreign country for a week, I have a little more experience to speak from. One thing I’ve learned is that saying you’re going to do something – planning, dreaming, prepping – is most always very different than doing the thing itself. Nothing usually is quite how you plan it. The trick is to have the gumption to keep moving, accept what is unchangeable, and be grateful for the little things.

So far, I can tell you from my experience, living in a foreign country is hard! For the first few days I felt like a little child, stripped of all control and basic understanding of how things worked. I realized I pride myself on being savvy. I’ve traveled through most of the United States without any real problems – feeling comfortable within the first couple hours of my arrival. Here, though, everything worked a little differently, and it was extremely unsettling for the first few days.

For example – it took us an hour to figure out that you had to put your room key card in this slot by the door in order to be able to turn the lights on, and that you had to close and lock every window to be able to turn on the air conditioning. I honestly never would have figured that out – thank god my partner in crime is a practical genius!

Everything really has been two steps forward, one step back, though. Like: trying to figure out how to print our train tickets on the kiosk after watching others do it so easily, then not being able to find the right screen, then having to ask the guy at the info desk, then having him give us step-by-step picture directions (something that would have taken us two minutes in the States, took us half an hour in Europe). Then we crammed in the elevator with our four bags each (two suitcases, two backpacker’s packs, two carry-on backpacks, and two shoulder bags) down to one platform, then we found out our train had been switched to a platform on the other side of the station five minutes before it was scheduled to arrive.

Another example: we were so happy to find an apartment to sublet within the first couple of days, we gave our new address to our new bank to get our ATM cards, then we found out two days before move-in that the tenant had decided to stay, and that, “sorry, you have to find another place to live”.

Every time we’ve hit a road block, somehow one of us had the strength of character to say “everything works out for a reason” and calm the other from the brink of panic.

One of the biggest obstacles at first was not being able to use our phones. Our carrier in the US told us that we would have cell phone service in Germany, just that it would cost more. We prepped ourselves for limited data usage and reliance on Skype and FaceTime for chatting with friends and family. However, when we landed at the Frankfurt airport, we quickly realized that our phones had gone dark. “No service” stood ominously in the corner of our phones. We were naked – no way to navigate with Google maps we had always relied on to give us directions, no way to make bank transfers, no translation app we had planned to use to decipher signs. All we had to rely on was the little information we could glean from the walls and brochures in a foreign language, and the kindness of strangers to provide directions in basic English. People proved to be very friendly and helpful though – once we got over our fear of asking strangers for help, we found that it’s always better to ask than to waste time wandering around like lost puppies.

We met a guy from Norway at a MeetUp event last week. I was super impressed by how readily he stopped anyone walking by to ask for directions as a group of us walked through Kreuzberg looking for a good bar or club to hang out at next. I asked him about this, and he said simply, “people are meant to be asked!” I’ve tried to remember that mantra as we navigate through the process of setting up a life here. It has not been easy. More than once, I have admittedly thought of how easy things were in the US and wondered why in the world I would pull myself out of the comfortable lifestyle I had built up around me. In those moments of doubt, I try to remember Robert Frost’s Road Less Traveled. And I try to think about how it could be so much worse – that I am so thankful for the basics – good food, sturdy shoes, a bed to sleep in each night, our pay-as-you-go cell phone with GPS we finally got, and my best friend by my side.

We were talking one night over beers about how spoiled we are. How so many people in the world struggle every day. That we are still in the 1% – with our possessions and savings. We have shelter, and food, and water, and clothing. What do we have to whine about? So it’s been a struggle to navigate transportation, and to communicate with the people around us, and to carry our bags from one living set-up to another. Are we so spoiled with comfort that we would let our discomfort create doubt or fear in our hearts?

Encouragement from a hostel chair

Not to be dark, but the worst we have to fear is death – and everyone dies anyway. We really have no idea what it is to struggle – and isn’t the struggle worth everything? Nothing worth having comes easy.

After a particularity frustrating day yesterday (after finding out our sub-lessor was backing out, and after walking in the rain for an hour trying to find an internet café), we were wandering through the dining room of our new hostel (we have been switching hostels every three days to get a feel for different neighborhoods in the city), and Jacob spotted a quote painted on the back of a chair. It said: “To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.” I took a picture that now lives on the lock screen on my phone. This is the mantra I am going to live by, for as long as it takes my spoiled little brain to understand – life is well worth the struggle.