Learn to say goodbye

The European Voluntary Service Programme is about learning a lot of new things. In fact, you start learning before your arrival, before you even know that you are learning - from the first inspiration till making the last decision.

You learn practical stuffs, you learn things that change you and make you a better person. You see the life from a different angle and your horizons expand with every single day, with every new adventure you take.

Every experience becomes a part of you, keeps shaping you and enriches you. Lots of the lovely memories, the treasures no one can steal, are formed by people you meet and friends you make. Saying goodbye to them is one of the hardest things ever. My colleague, Klara, said: “the reality makes us behave like machines; we know someone, than we just turn a page and continue living without people we once knew.” As the time passes by, you understand that what is important today, you might not remember tomorrow, and that what you dislike now you will miss for the rest of your life.

It is about getting to know life better. It is all about meeting new people who arrive and leave. You learn how to help people, how to understand them. Before starting your new adventure in a completely new country you need to say bye to your family and friends in your hometown. You are homesick but you will survive. Soon you will get used to the new environment, new people and culture. However, before even realising it you need to say bye again, this time to your new family, new friends, people who were with you through all the good and bad times. And this time it is farewell, if you like it or not, if you want it or not. It is for good.

Thanks to this experience I am learning how to grow up, how to be myself, I am becoming a stronger and confident person. The environment and people around me have affected me in many ways, they have helped to form my personality that never stops developing. I know myself much better know, my strengths and my weaknesses as well.

Never forget that each decision you make in your life takes you to a new point, a new start from where you see life differently, like it has a completely different colour, or from where you realize that you are actually completely colour-blind.