Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Where are the boundaries of your world?

While looking for a place to sit at the cafeteria today, a Bolivian friend of mine waved me down and I joined him for lunch. We started chatting about the world and his country. He told me that he used to work for the government in Bolivia but it kept changing so much... now Bolivia seems to be making a transition to socialism, which unfortunately doesn't seem like a good solution for a country with a wide disparity between the rich and the poor.

He told me that one of the biggest problems about Bolivia is that everyone in Bolivia thinks that Bolivia is the world. Though profound by itself at the time, I don't see the connection between that statement and solving their problems, but still sometimes I wonder for how many people, the boundaries of their world stop at the borders of their own country.

When I talk about boundaries, I don't mean just being outside of your own country, but really understanding what living in another country and culture is like. There is much to learn from people in different parts of the world, things that you or your people that might have never even thought of before.

I realize that sometimes making change happen can be incredibly tough. It could be inside the structure of an organization, a government or culture. Sometimes the system does not work and it is incredibly tough to change, as some systems are like bulky machinery running with a heavily in one direction. Why fight to change everything when you could also just go somewhere that suits you better? There will be, of course, times when you should fight for change... but only when you are in a position to make it happen.

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