On the road less travelled by

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

As a preparation for the voluntary service, one will take part in two trainings. The first is called “

Ech? Fräiwelleg? (me? Voluntarily?)” and the second is a pre-departure check. They were both really fun, and I met about 20 other people (I was surprised that about 80% were girls) volunteering in places from Belarus to Columbia.

The Left picture is a map where every one of pinned their destination on, on the circle we would write what we will doing there.

The middle picture is a bit how I feel right now, young and stupid trying to manage adult life without collateral damage.

The right picture is group activity through which we should realize that communication is veryyyy important.

In the days of the training, we discussed a lot about open- mindedness, stigma, cultural appropriation and many other things.

One thing that was mentioned a lot in the discussions was that, with everyone embarking on what will definitely be something that we will tell our grand kids, one sometimes tells themselves “Am I not crazy doing this alone?”.

It’s like we were caged birds, waiting to fly away.

On one occasion we were asked to choose, from a lot of cards where “values” were written on, whose mattered most to us in our lives. I think I took something like courage, compassion, humbleness.

Courage, because talk is cheap and at one point there're the talkers and the doers. Sometimes you make choices, other times choices make you. I look up to courageous people every day, and I hope to live, like them, a life on which I can look back without constantly thinking “What would I have done if I hadn’t let fear stop me?”

Compassion, which to me is similar to Empathy (capital letter on purpose), because I believe we are nothing if we stop to help each other. Though we often can only try to help, it’s still the most important gesture I know. In school, we once studied the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who I couldn’t stand in the beginning cause I thought he said that all good actions originate only from pity. Actually I had translated the German word “Mitleid” in the wrong way, in German, it has 2 meanings, the first is pity, the second is very different and more meaningful, it would mean in English: “ commiseration- the fact to feel someone else's suffering as your own”. After I understood that, I kind of agreed with Schopenhauer that “Mitleid” makes us human, and that maybe, by sharing suffering, dividing it with friends, it becomes a little less.

Humbleness, because to me it’s the opposite of arrogance, which is, if you ask me, the reason for 99% of the social problems we have. That some people feel they worth more than others. In my favorite movie. “Twelve angry men”, Henry Fonda plays this calm, collected man who comes closest to what I would imagine a truly humble person to be like. If I should want to learn one thing, then it is how to be: humble. (Like good old Kendrick ordered us to be)

One of the other girls mentioned security as one of her values, though she made a point of giving it another definition than most other people.

If you’d ask our high school teachers, strict parents and maybe even Luxembourgish society as a whole, they'll tell you it's a stable job first and foremost, it's a house and a car that you can buy without having to lend money. In short, security is depending on money.

In that sense, Luxembourgish youth knows security, safety, reassurance. Where we come from, most people have stable homes, with people around to guide us on our every move, in school we had a straightforward plan to make “achieve something”. It’s no wonder then that most of us are longing for something to help us to uphold this security that we're so used to.

We go to Uni, cause then we’re sure to have a job, we’ll be safe then.

I didn’t want to go to Uni yet, and the way that girl explained what security means to her, well that’s the closest I’ve come to being able to tell you why.

The girl talked about security about being a feeling, one feels secure when they come home and hear their loved ones talking in the kitchen, or when they go into a test they are well-prepared for, or when they take the bus home after school, which they have done hundreds of times.

It’s a matter of character rather than the amount of “things” you’ve accumulated. It’s confidence too, cause the more you believe you can do things, the more you feel comfortable in situations that maybe overwhelm others. In regard to challenges, you will be able to tell yourself: “I got this”. That’s security. In that sense, security is not a nice home with a nice high fence around it, or a country with the strictest border on earth (bet North-Koreans don’t feel safe),it’s not even a place at all.

There can be 20 backpackers in some dodgy hostel in Ljubljana that feel safer than the grandma in the big house with an alarm. You built security too, it’s trust after all. Now I’m not saying that a 20 person dorm is the safest place, the point is, that the people in it, have just themselves and their backpacks, still they sleep soundly, cause they’ve developed a sense of security that withstand situations like these. They know and trust themselves, which is something many people can’t say of themselves.

On the same note, I once read that they say about Einstein that one of his remarkable traits was that he had a part of his character that was so entirely his, he would act “like himself” no matter where he was or who he was with. I want that to be me as well, I want to find security in the basics of my character so much so, as that I can trust in my abilities, know exactly what I am and what I'm not. I want security, in the way that I want to be sure that my life is MY life. I'm in charge, and I'm not letting anyone influencemy directions.

Cause I do know what's best for myself, so if you try and tell me something about me that you think is true, and that I don't know yet. And I believe you're simply wrong, it's exactly those secure basics of character that I will refer to when I am arguing just why you're wrong.

By the end, we all agreed that it’s actually absurd to believe that security equals having money. Though I’ve always had more than enough money to live, so I’m not in the position to say it doesn’t matter at all. Because someone who’s hungry frankly doesn’t give a damn about how to and not to define security, thinking about that won’t make food appear miraculously, so it doesn’t matter.

But, what I believe I’m still entitled to say is that it’s not the deciding factor, as proof of this I’d say: look at the rich people who are terrified of not being rich anymore, they practically have paranoia because they’re scared someone will “steal” from them, in contrast, take an old grandma, 98 years old, who remembers war and wears the same clothes she did in 1997, she lives in a care home (a good one I hope), she has no paranoia, only gratitude.

This comparison might be a bit weird, but it might explain all the different things that security can actually be.

The part with the cards was by far my favorite one, everyone explaining why some things mean so much to them. I looked up to everyone for doing what they did, some of the projects (for example, working in an orphanage in Bolivia), seemed to be much more demanding than my little “happy farm” in the mountains, I

can only say I respect the determination of these girls.

On another occasion we talked about “Identity”, I’m starting to understand why this is important. For all my life I have been “ A student to this school, a friend to this person, a member of that club”, I had all these pieces that made up my identity. Now for a long time, I’m not a student, I have no friends with me, nor anything really to fill up my free time.

With “no strings attached”, what is my Identity?

For all my friends who went to university, I think it was easier to make a switch, they changed from one group identity to another. They are now, often with at least one or two friends, a student again, and that among hundreds of others who are in the same boat. In these situations, you find friends easily, because everyone is looking for one and before you know it you rebuild a huge part of your Identity, plus I think that it will not be as easily shaken up as the “new” identity of non-university goers.

As for me, I will go to Uni eventually, but in Nepal, I’ll have 0 people with me, and absolutely no group Identity I could just pin on my forehead. The part I’ll have to rebuilt because I lost the other, will be entirely self-made. No one will really need me, and at least at first, where I am going, people already have their busy lives, their friends, their jobs. Of course, they’ll be open and kind, and I will make friends eventually. The point is, that I and I only will be in charge of making this new place a home.

It’s a lot of freedom you get, and everyone in the training said that they were a little scared too. After all, we’ll all walk on the “road less travelled by”, hoping that wherever we will go, we will be able to do things we can be proud of later. I’m really happy with my organization in Luxembourg (ONGD-FNEL) and my NGO in Nepal (SCLC), after all, I guess I’m more excited to leave than I am scared.

“I see the past

Of the time passing fast

The present over and gone

So now I'm ready

I trust my soul

I'm hoping to fly

With time we shall know

Trust in me

And set me free”

- Heaven, by the Blaze

In Friendship,

Teddy Smile