There's a passage in the book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F--k" that says:
"Travel is a fantastic self-development tool, because it extricates you from the values of your culture and shows you that another society can live with entirely different values and still function and not hate themselves. This exposure to different cultural values and metrics then forces you to reexamine what seems obvious in your own life and to consider that perhaps it's not necessarily the best way to live."
I would say that's true. While I haven't traveled out of the country extensively in my lifetime (yet), I have spent a lot of time in Costa Rica over the last year and a half or so, and it has opened my eyes to many new ideas about the world around me and about my own personal values and beliefs. More recently, I realized it has also helped me gain a better understanding of the United States by seeing it through the eyes of people who do not live here. While I could make a long, very detailed list of what-all it has taught me, I want to focus on the three things that seem relevant to what's going on in our country right now.
1. Our Border Problems Don't Just Affect Us
I'm going to make a confession here that may turn some of you off, but bear with me. I've always been a bit conflicted about what to do about our Mexican border issues. I'm not in favor of major deportation, especially of people with no other criminal history, and I do think there is a humanitarian aspect that we don't talk about enough. I've met and known people who are here illegally over the years, and many of them are good, hard-working people who make great contributions to our communities. Add that to the fact that I have some liberal friends who love to talk about how border issues are based on racism, and I'll admit, they do get to me with that guilt trip from time to time.
But during one of my trips to Costa Rica last year, I realized that securing the border isn't 'racist' at all. In fact, it's quite the opposite.
I was sitting in a restaurant, listening to a Costa Rican friend going on about crime rising in a particular city there.
"Why is that?" I asked, half paying attention. I was on vacation, after all.
"The Venezuelans — they're trying to get to the United States, and they stop here and live in the streets and commit crimes. Many of them are gang members. It seems to have gotten worse since Biden became your president," he explained. "It didn't really happen under Trump."
I didn't think much of it at the time, but fast forward to the last few months, and I've heard so much about Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan criminal gang that is growing within the U.S. One day, it hit me like a ton of bricks that this is who my friend was talking about. It also emphasized to me just how much of a national security issue an unsecured border is for us and helped me understand what a problem it is for many countries in Central America, too. These criminals are passing through there and wreaking havoc on them along the way.
The bottom line is that when our southern border isn't secure, we aren't safe, and the law-abiding citizens who live in Central America aren't safe, either.
2. The American Dream Isn't Dead
I was watching some TV show the other day and I heard someone say "The American dream is dead," and I realized I've heard that a lot lately. A 2021 issue of The Catalyst from the George W. Bush Institute states that the "American dream is...complicated." It goes on to say that:
For some, the idea still harkens back to our country’s founding. A belief that America provides a better life, even today, and that freedoms in our country afford anyone the opportunity to succeed.
For others, the concept is a fantasy. The realities of inequality, income mobility, the pandemic, and a broken immigration system send clear wake-up calls that the dream cannot be reached by everyone.
What I learned in Costa Rica is that maybe we're all just a little too jaded, especially if we fall into the latter category mentioned above. I know I have been in recent years. Living under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will do that, I suppose.
The people in Costa Rica still see the U.S. as the "Shining City on the Hill," no matter their circumstances. Some of them have visited for short periods, while many more never have. Some have tried to come here to live — both legally and illegally — and failed, while others simply sit back and watch their friends and relatives make the attempt. Some have dreams of coming here one day but they aren't quite sure how or if it will ever happen. Some have no desire to live here at all, but they show considerable respect for our country through actions and conversation.
"It's what they call the 'American dream,'" my same Costa Rican friend said to me one day while we were discussing someone he knows who lives here. From what I understood, that person doesn't have a lot of money or an easy life, but he's just happy to be in our country working toward his citizenship. While my friend himself has no intentions of coming here and even though he has traveled all over the world, including a few trips to the U.S., he still talks about our country with great admiration, too.
I could probably take a deeper dive here and get into some of the reasoning behind this, but I want to keep this surface level because that's all it took for me. When you see people from elsewhere in the world talk about your home country with stars in their eyes, you realize just how damn lucky you are to be born here or to live here, even if things are a little tough at times. We do have access to freedoms and opportunities that most people can only dream of, no matter our own current circumstances.
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3. It Wouldn't Hurt Us to Relax a Little
And while I do think we have the best damn country in the world, I am going to be a little critical here. Costa Rica is, for the most part, a pretty easygoing place. They do things at their own pace, and it can be daunting at first. On the initial trip I took, I traveled with a friend who I lovingly call my "Yankee friend" (she's from Pittsburgh; I'm from Atlanta). At one point, she got frustrated and said, "And I thought people at home in the South were laid back and slow."
A small example of this is when Costa Ricans go out to eat, they don't jump up and leave as soon as they finish their meal. They stick around, sometimes for hours, and talk and enjoy the atmosphere. One day, my Costa Rican friend and I were having dinner at a restaurant in a very touristy city called Tamarindo, and I realized about three different groups of people had been sitting at the table next to us during the few hours we sat and ate, drank, talked, and enjoyed the live music. "You can tell this place is full of Americans," I said to him of the town that is often referred to as "Tamagringo."
I feel like we could take a lesson from that here in the U.S. Life is so fast-paced. When was the last time you actually slowed down and sat in a restaurant and watched the people around you rather than rushing off to the next thing? When was the last time you truly disconnected? When was the last time you turned off your TV, put down your phone, shut your laptop, and were just present with your friends, family, pets, or nature?
Stress is literally killing us, and it's an issue that I have dealt with a lot over the last few years. When I spend time in Costa Rica, even when I'm down there working and dealing with real-life situations in a foreign country where I'm essentially alone, it all seems to melt away. So, I've been trying to incorporate some of that slower pace of life into what I do here at home, and so far, so good.
