To round out my five celebratory posts for Adventure Patches’ five year anniversary, I want to talk culture and share my new personal professional statement.
Culture is what makes the world such a remarkable place full of diversity, wonder and joie de vivre. It is the composite of place, people and circumstances and how individuals interact based on deeply rooted social philosophies and ideologies. Art, religion, politics, language, holidays, traditions and so much more develop because of culture.
Culture can be beautiful, magical and exhilarating. Sometimes it can be harmful. Most of the time though culture is just different and so people are confused by, scared of or judgmental toward what they are not familiar with. Personally, I love learning about and trying to understand cultures. Culture is the personality of a place and people!
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been on a journey to discover what I want to do with my life. I’ve decided I don’t want to define myself by a profession, but rather by a set of values and actions. It could involve one or many professions and careers, but it all revolves around this idea of culture. On the first night of my final class of my master’s program, it dawned on me what my professional statement should be that defines what I want to do with my life. After some refinement, I updated my LinkedIn profile summary with this:
I help people develop cross-cultural understanding and appreciation through education, travel and tourism. I accomplish this as a teacher, guide, writer and ambassador.
Teacher: teaching language, culture and history both formally and informally bringing real-life experience and knowledge to the classroom
Guide: leading others in first-hand experiences with the wonders, natural and man-made, and countless stories the world has to offer
Writer: sharing the story of places and people so that those who can’t have a first-hand encounter may gain insight into faraway places and their details through prose and poetry
Ambassador: helping combat ignorance and stereotypes to promote understanding of foreign ideas, their creators and homes as a speaker, photographer and storyteller
With increased understanding and appreciation of diverse ideas and practices, individuals and organizations can achieve greater success in a global marketplace.
This is what I’ve been trying to do through this blog and what I plan to expand on. Hopefully, I can help a few people expand their horizons to thinking outside of their own little spheres into the wide, wonderful, beautiful world around them.
Again, I want to thank all of you for being a part of the first five years of Adventure Patches. I’ve enjoyed it and hope you have too. Remember, adventure is out there, so go have one!
