Reflecting a bit

Yesterday I read a blog post from the mom of a blogger I read (got all that?). Anyway, the mom recently moved to Korea to study or maybe teach (but not study AND teach, as that's breaking some bureaucratic rules) and has been keeping a blog about her immersion into Korean culture while still in the U.S. (and of course will keep posting now that she's actually made it there). She posted a little bit about the Korean dramas/soap operas she's been watching and made an observation that's really been making me reflect a bit.

In these dramas, when characters (at least the "good" ones) review their life, they tend to ask, "Did I serve enough? Did I help my friend (family, country etc.) enough? Was my life used well enough to protect what I value?" Americans, it seems to me, tend rather to look back and ask,"Did I live life fully enough? Did I dance, love, risk, etc. enough?" Our focus tends to be more self-centered, more on whether we grabbed enough for ourselves. (Am I right on that?)

Sometimes my dh & I talk about death and what we want to have accomplished before we go. Often it's something like "Wouldn't you be disappointed if when you died you had never..." Often I get a little morose and tell him it doesn't matter - when I'm dead I'm dead, seeing the Parthenon or the Galapagos Islands won't have mattered when I'm gone. But... I've never thought much past that. The truth is, I don't feel I've contributed enough to this world. Did I serve enough? No. Was my life used well enough to protect what I value? I don't think so. Did I help my friend (family, country etc.) enough? No, not enough.

The strange thing is, if I asked my 20 year old self this my answers would have been different. In fact, when I've asked myself these questions, most of my positive examples were from my childhood & young adulthood. I was active in Amnesty International, I made sure to call & write politicians when I felt there were issues that needed to be addressed, I was the youngest person (age 15) to ever train for a particular crisis help line. After college I was my grandmother's primary caretaker while she was saddled with congestive heart failure for the last few months of her life. As a very young child I sought out the elderly in my neighborhood & would sit with them, listening to their stories and help out with household chores. I learned so much from them! I was a good person as a child, and then somewhere along the way I got jaded and stopped focusing on the outside world and turned all my attention on to myself and my immediate circle. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

Somehow I've got to recapture my youth and be the person I was in training to be. I have a lot to give, and I hope some way I can find away to make a difference.