Moments of patience, dedication and wonder

Happy Lao Newyear to all of you🥰…….and……..Welcome to this world little Ingo Vue……born 14 April on the day of Lao Newyear…that you may bring luck and happiness and have a beautiful life️Dairy StoriesLive your life with Love, Passion and Dedication

Last week I had a few talks with two of my students from Kajsiab Shelter.I had a long talk with both Leej and Pawnia.Both of them are going through a huge transformation process and they both struggle with the choices they have to make in their lives.Leej just graduated from high school and needs to choose if he wants to continue his studies. What should he do? Quit school and start to work? Continue school but which direction? English? Computers? Economics? And where? Near his safe haven Kajsiab Shelter or far away?The more he was thinking about it the more difficult the choices seemed. Like high mountains too difficult to climb. And he worked less and less. Getting stuck in the circle of doubt.What life really is about is not the choices to make, but the fact that you actually choose. If you do not choose things will get stuck. The energy stops flowing. And nothing will happen.It is far more important to just choose a direction and when later it seems it was the wrong direction you can still change. You can always change direction. Even when you are 40 or 60.It is not about the direction you take. It is about choosing every day to walk the path with dedication, passion and love. If you work hard then life will unfold itself. If you believe your own strength, power and – very important – intuition, then the choices will become clearer by itself.You will know, you will have a gut feeling and you need to focus more on that.Pawnia called me and he said he knew what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to become a translator. He said in Laos translators are needed very much and he would get a good job then to support his family. He also said he would be able to help Kajsiab Shelter and Daauw Home and Daauw Restaurant in the future, to give back.Many people at Kajsiab Shelter choose to give back once they are back on their feet.aI was very enthusiastic and talked a lot to him to encourage him.He learned English with me and with Waa every day after that.Ten days later he called me.Doubt and worried had hit him in the face. He had quit already 3 days with English learning.I said: “You see? Same thing happened with Leej. Once you start worrying and thinking too much and not believe in yourself everything stops. Life stops.”“You just have to keep going and do not set your goals too high. 3 words a day is not much. But imagine if you do that 356 days. How many words will you know in one year?”Pawnia said: “Oh, okay, that means to learn slowly is no problem? I said: “No, it is even better. Because it will help you to keep going.”“Slowly but steadily.”Both leej and Pawnia decided to just keep going then. At a slower pace but steadily.Ten days later we received a donation.Enough to buy a phone for Pawnia so he could have the online coaching with me and for Leej to do his exams in Luang Prabang.Live your life with Love, Passion and Dedication.Keep going, slowly but steadily.Never ever forget to believe in yourself and your gut feeling.If you can dream it, you can do it.And then the universe will help you and magic will come to you………..

I lived with the Hmong people in Laos for 18 years.18 years is a long time.I still only know the top of the iceberg about their culture and traditions.

Even though I lived day and night with them, in a close community where you can hide nothing from each other and most of the life is outside. Even though I went through the deepest struggles and highest achievements with them, together with them.Even then…..What I DO know is that in the western world, we do not know anything about patience. We think we do. We think we are patient.But that is not true.We want something and we want it now.Somebody else is doing something and we immediately judge.We do not wait. Until the path of this person unfolds itself and we slowly understand the how and why this person is doing something. We do not wait. We just judge.We do not wait until the universe gives us what we want. We just take.The Hmong people wait. They wait, they look, they observe. And once they have done that enough they do it even one step longer, just to see if they missed something.That process can take hours. Or days. Even weeks or months or years.And then they choose. What to do, what to give, what to offer. What they think about the other person’s choices.What a beautiful gift that is. Being able to live like that. Just by being patient.This is also why the Hmong people can live so closely together and why we westerners are not able to do that.

We would have fights and struggles and misunderstandings and our whole world would collapse.We want too quickly and judge too much. To truly be patient is an amazing skill that takes years and years to practice. So, we better get started …….