I guess it depends on what we mean by “recently,” and I would assume buying two-ply toilet paper isn’t what you mean.

I guess at 63, there are not too many lessons that shift your perspective, but I would say something I learned recently in the last few years and definitely enforced in the last year. People should travel or live abroad if they can, and I direct this at Americans, and I am an American. You see some of this play out in the World Cup now.

Let me be clear, I love my country. It is a beautiful, amazing, and fabulous place to live. They have done amazing things across a wide range of fields, from technology to medicine. No soldier has given more to causes around the world than the American soldier, and no country has provided more support and funding.

However, there is always a however. Americans tend to live in a controlled space where everything is the best. When you step out to travel or live somewhere else, there is greatness in everything, from the people to what each country has to offer. We (Americans) can learn to be more humble, caring, and understanding. We have and hold an amazing position in the world where we can do so much without using it as a leverage point or as something owed. I’m not talking about giving it away, but about finding ways to understand and build partnerships to make everything better.

That is how my perspective changed, not just from a proud American thinking we are better, but from a happy American who sees the world and people for who they are, the way they live, and their lives, good, bad, and in their struggles.

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