Countries lived in:
Pakistan, USA, Italy, Thailand, UAE, Sri Lanka and Canada
Countries worked in or traveled to:
Australia, Philippines, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, China, North Korea, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Malta, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, France, Belgium, UK, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Hungry, Croatia, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, South Africa, Senegal, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador
I found a journal of mine from when I was 19. On the opening page, I had copied lines out of Ulysses, from Tennyson: "I cannot rest from travel. I will drink life to the lees." I knew the whole poem by heart, back then. Underneath the lines, I had written: "I PROMISE TO LIVE MY LIFE AS A TRAVELER". What that meant for me, at the time, was to never have any obligations or commitments in life, except for my commitment to follow my heart, wherever it wanted to go. But, regarding travels, as is said in the Fables, 'be careful of what you wish for'... little did I know how much I would end up traveling in my life.
I started traveling the world as a student, but then my work required me to travel constantly as well. While I thoroughly enjoyed these travels, working as a clinical psychologist through all these cultures opened windows for me through which I could appreciate their deeper dimensions and dynamics.
The cross-cultural experiences, on the one hand, allowed me to celebrate diversity on all levels, but on the other, they showed me how our most strongly held beliefs and lifestyles were mostly an accident of where and what we were born into. They allowed me to appreciate the universals underlying all the various cultural explanations, expressions, and forms.
As it continued in Ulysses, "...For always roaming with a hungry heart, much have I seen and known; cities of men and manners, climates, councils, governments, myself not least, but honour'd of them all... Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life!... Old age hath yet his honour and his toil. Death closes all, but something ere the end, some work of noble note, may yet be done... Come, my friends, it is not too late to seek a newer world."
Cross-Cultural Experiences
