I came across this quote the other day that said: “Everyone has a ‘risk muscle.’ You keep it in shape by trying new things.  If you don’t, it atrophies. Make a point of using it at least once a day.”

At first I just chuckled and didn’t think much of this little saying, but because of all this free time I seem to now have (since it is officially winter) I started to really consider this quote in relation to my life here. A case could be made that I don’t have to worry about my “risk muscle” atrophying just by the simple act of being here and living in this culture day in and day out.  Yet, when I am really honest with myself, just like with life in America, you get into a routine and find ways to avoid stress and with that trying new things on a regular basis (or at least I do…).  That is not to say I never try new things or push myself, but I certainly don’t work on this every day and I will be damned if I let my risk muscle atrophy!

I think the most difficult part of trying new things here and putting myself in new situations has been that I don’t like asking for help.  I would rather suffer slightly in order to avoid asking for help.  For example, I have been without gas for my heater for the last month, but I have just been living in my sleeping bag rather than asking my landlord or a friend to help me rectify the situation.  It is not that I don’t think people would help me if I asked, but I was just tired of looking helpless and couldn’t bring myself to take the risk of just asking for a little help.  Is this silly of me?  Yes.  Did I realize as I sat in my living room seeing my own breath that it was ridiculous not to ask for help?  Yes.  Yet, it still took me over a month to just ask.  Once I did a wonderful friend immediately offered to come help me drag a gas tank through the streets, and when I finally got up the courage to ask my Albanian landlord to help they got my heater working within 24 hours.

This is a concrete example of how I am not using my “risk muscle” like I know I should, but I think that this inability to just ask for what I want reaches into many aspects of my life here.  I can’t speak for other volunteers here, but I think that it is very difficult to constantly rely on other people here in Albania and it takes some adjustment and wears on your self-confidence more than you would like… I feel like in the states most of us were off at college or at jobs being productive and didn’t rely on other people to get most things done like we have to now.  I also think that while we have all become more self-reliant over the course of our time here that to some extent we will never feel that same sense of independence we once did.

For me this has meant living in a state of self-preservation and staying in my comfort zone over the last few weeks and not working my “risk muscle” like I should.  I go to the same fruit and vegetable vendors rather than exploring the other side of town, I stick to the same basic vocabulary words and conversations I understand to avoid asking what new words or sayings mean, and I don’t seek out new people and experiences like I should.  I want to change all these things.  It won’t happen overnight, and there will still be some days where I let my “risk muscle” rest, but none of these things would require drastic changes to my everyday life.  What it will boil down to is just getting over my fears and simply asking for what I want and/or need… Should be easy right??????