I'm not gonna front, before I came to Nepal, I was worried about what it meant to experience poverty. I came with a lot of misconceptions of what it means to live in a country that was deemed poor by outsiders. And sure enough, the first day was a shocking experience. I came off the plane with hundreds of people swarming luggage claim and taxi drivers trying to get anyone to get into their car. But my time in Nepal has taught me that poverty is only a concept. Just because someone makes a certain amount of money, we label them in categories to describe their happiness and self-worth. In reality, poverty is only what we make of it. Yes, my host families in Nepal and India may be, by a definition, poor, but that does not mean that they are deprived of something. In fact, they are happier than most people I know back home. Just from the glimpse of their lives that they have shared with me, their lives are never packing anything. There's always three square meals, things to do, and lots of love to be distributed. So many times in my life, I've equated money and the amount of material things I have ownership over to happiness. Somehow the less I had meant I would be less happy.
It’s been eye opening to see how people across the world live their lives. One that is filled with joy and love and not lacking in any sense. Humans are incredibly resilient, they make due with they lives, and find ways to live abundantly with whatever they have. It really puts things into perspective. I have been thinking a lot about my return to the United States, the life I live and the meaning of the things I own. This experience has helped me realize how my life is lived in measurements of what I need rather than what I have. It’s hard to unlearn what I have been socialized to prioritize, but it’s a lesson that I’m grateful to have learned.