By Lorenzo Italiano
Finally, this is the last one. The last 300-400 words that I will write for this ESC Youth Blog, so I guess it is worth to even call this article something like “the end of a cycle”.
The articles of the Blog which I found most useful form me during my ESC experience are the ones of the volunteers sharing their life experiences on this island. They helped me a lot when I first came here. I was in an unknown completely new environment, mostly by my choice because I wanted to discover the place by seeing it, but still, it was very useful to read a glimpse of the adventures that the previous volunteers did and to take some inspiration. So, the next 350 words are going to be a small reflection of this year spent here in Cyprus.
This is year was a rollercoaster. From the beginning the horizon seemed so vast that I really could not see where my choices would lead me, in certain moments I found so many junctions that at the beginning I wrongly thought that I really was not in control of the paths that I took, something bigger than me like social obligations and judgements that did not make me free to take my own choices and I hated it. Looking at my mood-line, at the beginning I was curious, despite things not meeting my expectations for quite a good margin I still wanted to see the full part of the half-empty glass, and even if the full percentage was quite low, I was focused on filling it. Despite this approach, I arrived at a point in which I really hated this island. I liked the job, or at least parts of it, but the rest was very challenging from many points of view. I almost accepted a very bad job offer because I just wanted to go home. That was my lowest point, in February.
Although the experience and feelings that I had remain very personal ones, the whole process could be included within the umbrella of what it is called cultural shock, despite (luckily) I did not lived many of its symptoms.
The element that reversed the course of this negative line was a really small but crucial thing of everyone’s daily life; the possibility and the luck to have freedom of choice. So I realized that when every morning I went out from home headed to the office instead of to the airport, it was my choice, it was because I was choosing it. I got rid of obstacles/ judgements/ voices in my mind to realize of the power of free will that I have over my life, and I felt thankful, blessed and determined to remind myself every day.
Since then the path in my mind became clear, I looked, I am looking at the horizon, and I can see where my walk of life (I am a super fan of the Dire Straits) heads to, and what I need to walk this way. Since then things started to improve, they are improving. I put myself in play more, went out from my comfort zone and I ended up seeing my near future not in my beloved Italy, but here, in Cyprus.