4 Soft Skills You Can Learn in Europe as You Enjoy Your Time
Embrace the real ‘you’ and enjoy…
I always wished to live in the most beautiful continent in the world.
The wish came true in 2016. The experience turned out to be better than what I could have ever imagined.
I lived in 4 countries (France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany) and travelled to over 30 while I lived there.
When you live in so many places, you feel you belong everywhere.
There are some lessons I learned by observing a different way of life than what I had seen in my life until then.
I want to share these with you all. Whether you live or travel there, you can observe and learn these as you enjoy your time.
Here they go -
1) Understanding Diversity is the way of life
Being the center of the world, Europe attracts people from all over the world because of the because of the richness of its culture, food, and languages.
Thanks to living here, I have friends in almost all countries across the world.
The connections I made have been instrumental in how my thinking has grown.
2) Slowing Down
Europe is the best place in the world to learn to slow down.
You could walk through the Plitvice national park in Croatia. Just admiring the stupendous waterfalls.
Or wait a minute, you could very well be enjoying an espresso and Pain au Chocolat in Paris. Right across from the Eiffel.
Savor the moment.
Take it all in!
This is an important learning which I hadn’t appreciated so well in the past. I could see the value of slowing down.
This is how I learned to balance multiple life priorities.
3) What’s Adaptability, really?
Do you believe in being the same for everyone?
Or do you prefer to follow the platinum rule?
Platinum rule of people management: Treat everyone the way they would like to be treated.
A few years ago, I might have mistaken adaptability as sometimes being inauthentic.
However, my time in Europe helped me realize:
Adapting to different people doesn’t mean “not being yourself” but just expanding your idea of “yourself”.
4) Leave the pursuit of perfectionism
Imperfection is beautiful
Europeans appreciate originality.
It could be about preserving history, culture and art in its most authentic form. Or it could be about humans.
You don’t feel the need to hide a part of your personality or be ashamed of it. You can be authentic and not worry about being judged.
My time in Europe helped me embrace the imperfect parts of my personality.
Most of my friends showed such genuine interest in my life. I loved talking to them, mostly in one-on-one conversations. It helped me think through things.
They were amazing at listening. I don’t recall them ever interrupting or passing gestures to show a loss of interest. Instead, they asked insightful questions.
Conclusion
When you open your eyes and look around, you see beauty. Beauty in diversity, in adaptability, in imperfection, in slowing down.
This experience taught me the importance of living each day to the fullest and focusing on the positives.
I hope your European adventure turns out to be a mixture of wildness and calm. Contentment and energy. Growing and slowing down.
Let me know what you have enjoyed the most.
