Today I am in a thoughtful mood... and am feeling very grateful.

Thankful to my grandparents and parents.  If they had made different choices in their lives, I might be living in Bannu, NWFP, Pakistan instead of Boulder, Colorado, USA.  I may have never gotten to go to school or to marry the man I love or to pursue my dreams.  However silly or shallow they might be, they are my dreams and I would be lost without them.  I am blessed with such physical and emotional comforts, thanks to my parents and my family and friends.

People may have been living in the Americas for tens of thousands of years, but the Americas are lands of constant immigration.  Waves of waves of people have come by boat, land, and plane - leaving behind the comfortable and old, and embracing the unknown and new.  I think it is deeply ingrained in the American culture to favor innovation and expression over tradition. 

I have a very romantic view of the Americas - where people are too busy making and following dreams to take issue with the one next to them who is shaking down some unsaid boundary. 

At the same time, I do feel lonely in my outlook on life.  I'm not satisfied with any world views that I am familiar with - neither with American materialism and the virtue of prosperity, nor the Christian ideal of humility, nor the Asian ideal of familial loyalties.  Somewhere, there is a world view that puts individual dignity at its center, and balances selfless and selfish, duty and desire, individual and collective, ambition and acceptance, confidence and humility.

What are your thoughts?