I spent a marvelous week in Bhutan ushering in my New Year. It's a gorgeous country and I am in love with it for multiple reasons.
For my trip I'll let some pictures do the talking - click here
Yes some parts will get missed out like my fantastic dinner with Phub Gen and Ugyen from Yangphel, making dinner friends with an American opera team performing a classical music opera in Bhutan, lunch with Tandin and his family on the outskirts of Thimpu, the first night on the trek visiting a Bhutanese house and chatting with a llama, visiting a monastery under construction, my talks with Tandin about Buddhism, the visits to monasteries but the pictures are a chance to chronologically go through my holiday .
As I leave Bhutan I realize I’m more at home in the mountains. I focus better and work more efficiently. I have known this for a while so now I wonder what I can take back to the city.
- (I struggled for four months but) Email on the go is a waste of my time. I've said good bye to blackberry services on my smartphone
- Sleep and walk (not sleepwalk – which I last heard of in the Enid Blyton series Malory Towers) more
- Do less email and talk to people more
- Eat bigger meals and play a lot
- Spend more time around my kids back at school learning with them AND stop planning life outside class so hard
Bhutan rang home some experiences and brought to life some stuff I've been thinking about too. Just before I went to Bhutan Geet Sethi spoke to us at Teach for India's Ahmedabad retreat. He said “you cannot have the focus of a monk if you live like a king”. And Zen Habits, the blog I read a lot has been encouraging a year without goals for a while now. Living in the present and giving everything a huge shot. Those might be my guiding principles for the year - live simply and work with out goals.
Here is to 2012!
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