My Search for Meaning

I would like to share a letter of thanks I wrote to the Boulder Offices after my experience with Dragons...

Thank you for allowing me to embark on an educational journey, one lead from authentic ideals and one that has left a major impact on my development as a person. Thank you for the friends I have been able to make and the instructors that were able to teach me more than I learn in a given school year. Thank you for the lectures, lessons, and debates which most often lead me to think beyond, and now leave me thinking critically everyday. Thank you for the endless journey of possibility - making me believe in my mental, emotional, and physical self more than ever. Thank you for the exploration, as the endless trekking has allowed me to grasp the full beauty of China and learn that China is much more than an overpopulated and polluted country. Thank you for the policy of electronics, as disconnecting has made me realize that the devices that we think make us connected to the world actually disconnect us from the ones that are close. But most importantly, thank you for allowing me to search for my meaning, as I have learned that our search for meaning can just simply never end.

If I were to tell someone one thing I learned in my search for meaning; I learned that one’s philosophy on happiness will change depending on where you come from. Happiness - a paradox of itself is something that I much analyzed when I was with my Homestay family.

When trying to immerse myself in my rural Homestay family on the outskirts of Xining, I without a doubt was pushing myself out of a comfort zone that the Western World had forced upon me; not only because there was a major language barrier, but because the luxuries of indoor plumbing, a memory foam mattress, and indoor heating and insulation were swept away from me beneath my feet - literally, with myself sleeping on the cold Tibetan nights on a crummy blanket , laid upon dear mother earth. But, you may be asking yourself: How does this relate to happiness? After experiencing the Tibetan lifestyle - a very simple lifestyle to say at the least - I reflected back on the lifestyle I had at home - a lifestyle completed with all the physical luxuries of indoor plumbing and heating, but a lifestyle also filled with the essential ethics of freedom and privacy - things these Tibetan people have never experienced and probably will never experience. So, in regard to happiness, I constantly questioned myself “How do these people - living such a simple lifestyle remain happy and content, even in their most dreadful moments?” And as I type this, I still have no answer to that question.

The experiences, lessons, people, and places that encompassed my search for meaning all have left a huge impact on myself - and this letter is my best shot at conveying how thankful I am for the experience. “You travel not only to see the world, but to see yourself” Endless experiences could be shared in this letter - but I just wanted to provide you a brief insight into the experiences you (Dragons) were able to give me.

Thank you.