The First American Guests

Two days ago I welcomed the first American guest that has stayed here in the past 40 days since I started this job.  And two hours after that came the second.  And yesterday came the third!  All traveling separately.  How random!  Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, has a saying that appears in a few of his books that goes something like this: something that happens only once might never happen again, but if it does happen a second time, it most surely will happen a third.  Not 100% relevant here really, but I like that quote and writing this made me think of it.

I spent a bit of time with the first two Americans (the third was traveling with a group of Australians), and the first thing I did was offer them mate and show them how to prepare it.  I figure the more people that drink mate in the US, the more accessible mate supplies will become!! 

We talked about various things, but one point we touched on (only for a moment) was that a lot of our friends back in the US all think that our trips are really cool and say things like "I wish I could do that."  Now I'm not sure if many people sincerely would like to travel for several months, or if that's just an automatic response, or maybe they wish that they wanted to travel, but they just don't, but feel like they should at least want to for some reason.  But I bet that most people think that it would be cool to at least take a trip somewhere for a few weeks, whether in the US or to another country, but they never do for one of 2 very opposite reasons: either they are very focused on saving money and don't want to spend any, or they're not very focused on saving money and don't have any to spend. 

A lot of my friends are savers, and for many of them paying cash for a new car or paying off a house in 12 years take precedence over buying or doing things for pleasure.  Obviously avoiding taking on a lot of debt, or paying it off quickly, are good things to do, but at what price?

I'm also a saver, and something I've been trying to do since I came back from Mozambique is spend more money on worthwhile things.  My natural (learned) habit is to turn down most things that cost money - going out to eat ("I have leftovers"), a trip to the beach ("I have a lot to get done around the house"), buying a new camera ("everyone else will take pictures and give them to me"), etc.  But I used to just turn all these things down without considering how much they're worth to me.  Going to happy hour and catching up with friends, taking a ski trip and trying something new and exciting, or buying an expensive racquetball racket that just feels some much nicer to play with can all be worth the price. 

Another point we (also very briefly) talked about was that no one ever thinks they have enough money.  The more money you make, the more expensive things you want and buy, and more is never enough.  I had a friend who got the job of his dreams a few months out of grad school and was ecstatic with his salary of $65,000, but one month later we has already talking about what he would do if he made more money, and how he would like his job more if it paid better.  As a Wake County teacher I got pretty annoyed, seeing as how teachers with 30 years of experience make less than that, and starting teachers make just over half of that.

I have no conclusion for this post and its randomness other than to say that I hope at least one of the two Americans that drank mate with me gets hooked and takes some back to the US.