Lately, I have a morning routine: Yoga and Jack Kornfield meditation lectures. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I smile, always I feel calm afterwards.

The concepts of letting go and not being attached play a central role in Kornfield’s teaching. Basically, letting go means no longer being attached. You can be very committed to raising your children in the way you deem moral and correct. If you expect as a return your children to become lawyers with a white picket fence lifestyle, you are attached to the outcome. That’s where the misery begins.

Purpose is not derived from results.

The integrity of how you go about things is purpose. Back to the morning routine: I feel great until something throws me off. Feelings of not being valued at work or tiny things like wanting Pho in rural Germany where Vietnamese don’t live. My reactions then become pretty random, far from controlled: they range from crying to me hating everything German to me looking up flights to Boston to sucking it up and tuning into a new Kornfield: meditate, be happy, be angry. Repeat. Really, I thought, I had this letting go thing internalized.

Until this moment when Pouya got really excited about the English Garden, the city life and I happened to ask him why he never complained about rural life. His response, that he’s decided his happiness ought not to be dependent on location, made me ashamed of myself.

And then just the other day a friend who has lived in the UK, US and is now moving to Switzerland, very kindly pointed out to me how complaining about Germany is really German. She said the same happens to her, literally she said: “This is what Germany does to me.” She had a point, though. The point is that the majority of Germans are perpetually complaining about something, not seeing the absolutely amazing quality of life. I do not want to be part of that. And yet, I do not have to leave the country in order to not be part of that.

The integrity of my purpose, connecting people and advocating, should be the guiding force. All too often I get sidetracked. Where is this life leading if I am always searching for the better? What comes after this salary, after the Ironman, after the next big city? Not everything was golden in Boston, not everything is golden here. Where I live, though, is an outcome. Staying true to myself in Germany is one of my toughest challenges, and it took me a year of sad and hard feelings to get to this post. I trust my journey.

Let’s see how long the next Kornfield lecture lasts tomorrow morning 😉.