Not Being Colombian: An Exercise of Gratitude

Or "Why it sucks being Colombian."


My new roommates are great. Two of the nicest people I've met while here. Really cool guys that have time to actually hang out, talk, and teach me some Spanish. My last roommates were just not that friendly, which is okay. They were indifferent towards me. Nothing is wrong with that, but life is so much easier when you live with cool people that you can bullshit with when you get home and have time to laugh with you.

Anyways, talking with them (and many other Colombians), I easily notice that a lot of people in Bogota are unhappy about being in the city or living in Colombia. I've met many people here who just feel stuck. They hate where they're at and its really difficult to get outside of Colombia without connections or money. The visa process of leaving Colombia to go anywhere is way more difficult than it should be. 



Hearing this over and over again really drills in the under-appreciated reality of how lucky we really are to be American, and to have a passport that goes around the world without interviews and fucked up fees. We are a part of as Warren Buffet puts it, the "lucky sperm club", I think. A lot of people in the rush of busy lives forget this, and it's easy to understand why. This is not something that can be fully grasped by living at home, unless you have some saintly empathetic abilities to relate with other people on the other side of the world. 


I guess once you get used to something or novelty wears off, it can be very easy to forget how lucky you are or how many good things you really have going. There's gotta be a psyche term for that, but I don't know it. 
Lately, I've been reading about how people who write down what they're thankful for, in a gratification journal or something like that, are overall a lot happier. 

These new guys I'm living with are something to write on that list or journal. The other day I took them out for pizza because I had had a shitty week and wanted to relax, and I know they were low on dough, having problems with girls and work. Pizza and bullshiting always brightens up the day. So we smashed on a mexican specialty pizza with corn chips and avocado and other ingredients.
For one guy it was the 1st thing he had eaten all day. I think he had just been job searching all day and went to church for an hour or 2 and just didn't eat because he was so stressed out. If I hadn't gotten pizza he might've gone the whole day without eating, which is fucking crazy.