My Gap Year

[NOTE: I’ve been traveling through some countries where access to the internet has been a challenge. I’ll hopefully be catching up on my posts over the coming days.]

Bhutan is not like any country I’ve ever been to before. The people are very soft-spoken (to the point that I often had to ask people to repeat themselves) and life moves at a distinctly tranquil pace. On the roads, the national speed limit is 50 kilometers per hour (around 30 mph), even on such highways as exist. There are no traffic lights. No one honks his horn. All of the buildings are mandated to be built in a certain specific style to impress upon the people the importance of equality. It is the only country in the world that is carbon negative. It removes more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than it produces. Over 70% of the country’s land is forested, and the constitution mandates that there must always be at least 60% of forested land in the country. They have replaced the concept of Gross National Product with “Gross National Happiness.”

I wondered what accounts for the difference between Bhutan and so many other countries, even similar small countries in Asia. Based on my experience, I had to conclude that so much of what makes Bhutan Bhutan is the primacy of Buddhist principles in every day life. Considering the integral role of Buddhism in so many people’s lives, I think it is largely responsible for the way in which the people of Bhutan approach the world – you can connect with people more easily when you speak softly and accept people’s foibles, there is no reason to drive fast or aggressively, it’s better to breathe clean air than engage in industrial development, and deep down we’re all ultimately the same.

One of the highlights of my gap year (thus far) was making the hike up to the Tiger’s Nest Monastery just outside of Paro, Bhutan with my guide, Tashi. It took several hours, and concluded at an altitude of over 10,000 feet. All the hiking I did with a weighted vest before I left on my trip helped, although I still felt the altitude and I wasn’t exactly running up the hill. The trek to the Monastery reminded me of my trip to Macchu Picchu many years ago, in that you hiked for a long time without seeing your objective, but suddenly, as you crested a final hill, there it was laid out before you.

I was surprised by my reaction to the first glimpse I had of Tiger’s Nest. It was as impressive as it looks in photos and is not comparable to anything else I’ve ever seen. Staring at it from across a little canyon overwhelmed me with unfamiliar emotions. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but all of a sudden I could feel tears welling in my eyes.

And then it struck me. In that instant, it was as if 63 years’ worth of gratitude cascaded down on me all at once.

People in Los Angeles seem to talk about gratitude as a commodity, something that can be abstracted from life experiences and appreciated on its own. There’s those people who talk about writing in their gratitude journals or waking up and immediately expressing gratitude for three things in their lives. This always seemed so forced to me; there have been (many) days during my adult life when it took all my energy just to get out bed in the morning. The idea that I would be able to separate a sense of gratitude from what was actually happening in my mind at those times generally infuriated me. Other than feeling grateful for my children and their well-being, I would struggle to identify something – often anything – to feel thankful for.

But I think my discussions with Tashi helped me understand a different concept of gratitude. It’s not just about being thankful that you have clean water and good food, although those things are worth feeling gratitude about. There’s more to it though; the opportunity to cultivate wisdom and compassion is one of the most important objectives in Buddhism and, if given the opportunity to pursue wisdom and compassion, one has much to be grateful for. Tashi recited a Buddhist prayer for me: “With every breath I take today, I vow to be awake; And every step I take, I vow to take with a grateful heart, so I may see with eye of love into the hearts of all I meet, to ease their burden when I can and touch them with a smile of peace.” If you can ease someone’s pain and contribute to his or her happiness, you have accomplished much to be grateful for.

Tashi was a pigeon in his prior life. At least that’s what the monk told his parents when he was born. He would need to do good works and earn merit throughout his life so that his next incarnation would bring him that much closer to Nirvana. You can’t rest on your laurels. If you don’t want to come back as a pigeon, you need to live a life that is meaningful, seek knowledge and pursue a greater understanding of human nature with all of its frailties and inconsistencies. Deep down, we’re all the same – the design of the houses in Bhutan reinforces that concept.

We also talked a lot about Buddhism’s focus on impermanence. Buddha taught that nothing in the universe is essential – that everything that comes also goes, everything that lives must die, and everything that is created will crumble.

High on a hill in Bhutan, my mind filled with thoughts about the choices I’ve made in life that have allowed me to experience this gap year journey. Yes, like all of us, I’ve made mistakes and poor choices, but the fact is that I am where I am, and, for the first time in my life, I actually feel content.

That’s not to say I’m free of worries or sanguine about the future. The world is a big place, and constantly changing; most of the time, I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster hanging on for dear life as I plunge down one of those crazy drops. But if I can accept the impermanence of the experiences that challenge me, it makes it that much more manageable to buy into the whole “this too shall pass” mindset that allows one to remain calm amidst a raging storm.

What rushed through my mind as I made the final climb to the Monastery was how often I’ve taken people in my life for granted and withheld emotion for reasons that seemed justifiable to me at the time, but, in retrospect, denied me closeness. My mother is a perfect example of this; she and I had a very complicated relationship and, for years, I never told her I loved her. Then she died after a short battle with COVID. Deep down, I think I did love her, just maybe not in the way we fantasize what a relationship between parent and child should be. She didn’t make it easy; she was always a very difficult and opinionated person and struggled with her own psychological issues. We needed to talk about a lot of things, but never got the chance.

My thoughts then stretched out to my gap year experience. I could easily have justified working longer and putting off retirement. But to what end? Life moves on, time passes, people die and you miss out on experiences that you tell yourself you’ll just have “later,” whatever that means. The concept of the impermanence of our existence hit me hard and made me feel gratitude for making the choice I made.

So there I was, getting choked up and having tears roll down my cheeks as I stared at the Monastery. Tears of happiness and tears of sorrow. I did something I never do – I took stock of all of the people in my life that I’m thankful for. I missed the chance to connect with certain people, or wasn’t honest in communicating my feelings to them. People come and go from your life. Sometimes you feel happy and sometimes you’re intensely depressed. Sometimes you love and hate the same person. Sometimes it feels like everything is going according to plan, and sometimes you realize that the plan itself is a delusion. Whatever I feel, I need to be able to embrace the emotion and communicate my feelings to the people who matter to me. I gained a new appreciation and sense of awe about impermanence and the importance of living a meaningful life filled with change, growth, and self-awareness. And, yes, gratitude.