Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening to wherever you are right now. It is April 17, and you might be thinking, “did I miss Amil’s March email?” But no, don’t fret, you didn’t miss it, for it didn’t even exist until a mere few minutes ago.

My March was crazy. A lot of amazing moments where I loved life: I went to Greece, I visited other Fulbrighters in their villages for some cool school events, and some of my high school friends came to visit. But, I also some angry at the world moments: I had the genius idea of putting my laptop in my backpack along with a - what I thought was - sealed pitcher of Aperol Spritz (spoiler alert: laptop is K.O.), I dropped my phone and it proceeded to tweak, glitch out, and inevitably break, and I had to pay a decent chunk of change to get these both fixed. Oh, and I finally got yelled at for being too loud by a stranger in the T-Mobile (tbh it was a bit comical because me and Marek (the guy working at T-Mobile helping me with my phone) were arguing back with him, and then a few minutes into it, the angry man says “Czech?” and Marek says “ano” which means yes, so then they started yelling at each other in Czech, and since I don’t know any Czech beyond “can I have an iced vanilla latte please?” I simply observed amusing exchange which I could not understand, but of course, I was already exasperated enough given all my foolish technology incidents, so getting verbally accosted by this stranger wasn’t exactly what I needed at the moment).

So, for a good part of March, I was deviceless and stressed. I felt behind, delayed, and angry at myself, because I couldn’t handle something as simple as keeping my phone intact. And don’t even get me started on the internal beratement that ensued when my laptop and my Aperol Spritz decided to mingle. Safe to say, I was not happy with myself for a large part of the month. But the month is over, my school gave me a laptop to use in the interim, and after a day or two in the shop, my phone is now fixed (mostly). And that’s kinda what I wanted to talk about today (I think).

My friend Bianca – another Fulbrighter who happens to be living and teaching here in Zlín as well, and who was with me when I took my laptop out of my bag to find it drenched in appy spritz – said to me, “the good thing is you didn’t break anything you can’t fix.” At the moment, I thought, “yeah, yeah, whatever” (and lowkey I still think that), but she is right. I didn’t break something that can’t be fixed. Okay, maybe this laptop can’t be fixed, but the point is, I can buy another one. In the moment, I replied to her (something along the lines of), “Oh the self-deprecating has begun and if you weren’t here, I’d be saying them aloud.”

Fast forward to some time in between when I broke my computer and my phone, I thought more about what Bianca said. What I was doing, chastising myself and criticizing my incompetence, was slowly and slowly breaking something that cannot be bought again: my self-worth. And in there, lies what I am trying to say.

When we mess up, which we all can and will do, our emotional reaction to the mistake is just as paramount as our physical response (the actual steps we take to the rectify the situation i.e. going to the shop, calling for help, cleaning up the mess, etc.). A calm and compassionate emotional reaction will illicit a level-headed and acute physical response.

For example, let’s say you’re with a group of friends at a dinner party, and you drop the host’s plate. It completely shatters and a few people standing near you get some small cuts on their legs/feet. What needs to happen right now is that everyone carefully retreats away from the area, the people who are bleeding are tended to, and you/anyone else willing to help put shoes on and carefully clean up the remnants of the broken plate. This would be the logical response. What the situation does not need right now is anger, hostility, blame, self-indignation – this might be the emotional equivalent to a second plate dropping and shattering all over the floor. An angry reply from the host to you because you broke their favorite dish, a censure from an injured guest because they are bleeding, or an internal monologue about how you are the clumsiest person in the world…ALL would make the situation worse. And my point is, that the physical response, is conditional on how we/others immediately emotionally react to the situation at hand. The emotional response is always first, and is usually automatic, which then begets the physical actions we take.

So now what? Well, I guess what I’m trying to tell myself is that there is no point emotionally harping on a situation – what’s done is done. If one constantly views one’s self as someone who breaks things, then they will never see all the wonderful things they’ve built. As fun and deserving as self-criticism can be during moments of our own err, it isn’t productive for anyone. In fact, it just slowly and slowly chips away at the thing we’ve been building our whole life: yourself. Our belief in ourselves, our view of ourselves, our value of ourselves…these are all things that take time to build. And when we are not compassionate to ourselves, cracks start to form. The more we repeat these harmful words to ourselves, the deeper the cracks get, and the more difficult it becomes to heal them. And maybe we can’t see them right now, but they’re there, and they’re going to need more than tape or glue to fix. So don’t break yourself down, but build yourself up.

You only have one self. There’s multiple versions of you, sure, but you only have one self. One mind, one heart, one set of arms, one life to live. We can’t spend our whole life unconsciously breaking ourselves. Would you rather break your phone or your relationship with your best friend? So what if we break a couple tangible things in our life – we are bound to – but to dismantle ourselves from the inside, ugh, that’s a tragedy beyond repair. We are not computers or phones, we’re going to take more than a few days in the repair shop to fix.

So, with love, I hope you don’t deprive yourself of the same compassion you unreservedly give out to others. I hope you are own mechanic, architect, and cheerleader. I hope you realize that you’ve likely built more things than you’ve broken, and the things you’ve built are far more permanent and impactful. So, the next time you make a mistake that you can fix, don’t make a more permanent mistake immediately after. Head up, chin up, stay up.

Thank you for listening to me!
If you’d like to follow along in my journey here in Zlín, I’d love for you to czech out my Instagram account: @amilinzlin!

You know the drill: everything I write here is something I am actively working on improving and implementing within myself. Writing them out also helps me to visualize what to work on and how to do it. And having you as my audience holds me accountable.

If you have any thoughts, comments, or feedback, please dish it to me! I’d love to know how I can improve. I am glad to have you here on my VasaVita journey.

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See you in a few weeks!

You all know the drill: in the sprit of transparency and holding myself accountable, I include my audience count here to keep you apprised of my growth. I lost a few subscribers in March ☹ but oh well, we keep moving!
If you have any ideas or tips, please do share!