Assimilating

I am convinced that people can adapt, can get used to everything this world of ours has to offer. I am stating this based on personal experience. Having a teenage daughter in my household I hear more than once that gee, I could never do that, or I could never get used to that.

After living in my parental home in my young years and then suddenly found myself leaving the country, going through nine months of camp living then eventually start a new life in a strange, foreign country was something I was not trained for. I did not speak a word of English, I had no real work experience but I looked life straight in the face. And eventually I made it.

My friends cut from the same cloth had similar dubious beginnings. One worked in a hospital washing bloody floors and walls, another worked in a butcher shop while he was studying. These were the men. The girls did not have any easier. They worked in hair salons as helpers, in kitchens as helpers, or waitresses. I actually worked as a dishwasher for over a year.

All my older friends from my country grew up in the asphalt jungle of Budapest. The only grass we ever saw when we went out to the parks or the neighboring hills. Yet, every one of them with one exception (me) bought a house in the suburbs with grass and shrubs and bushes and trees. In time they all became masters of their properties. This is another example of getting used to one's environment.  

But none of us complained and none of us ever got stuck in those jobs. We all knew that there was light at the end of the tunnel. We got used to the climate. I know some friends who went to areas where there is no winter and others who went to Australia where the seasons are upside down from the ones we grew up with.

These and many other actualities just prove that men (and women) can get used to everything and anything life throws in their faces all they need is just a little willpower. 

So, when somebody tells me that I could never get used to that, my response is that you had it too good to say that. Assimilation is human trait. Life forces us to assimilate if we want to survive and live.