“I began to write.”

Getting my first job in Dubai after graduation, I experienced the most unexpected culture shock in my own country and the city that I’ve grown up in. I worked in a very diverse company but the specific office where I was based in included expatriates from different corners of the world. I felt very integrated within the team but was the only Middle Easterner in the office. The element of shock came from the level of comfort amongst my colleagues allowing them to share stories of their personal lives so liberally with one another. I tried to make sense of it and thought it must be the distances from their families back home that have made them find ease in their work environment.

I couldn’t grasp how effortlessly they shared their struggles with one another in ways that I hadn’t seen shared between many families I’ve met in my life thus far. What struck me most about being exposed to this new world was how lightly they spoke about life’s problems, which to me would feel like secrets that had to be buried deep where they could never be found.

Sharing your stories with others makes you realise your problems are not the worst, and rids you of that feeling of shame. Often when we face troubles in life, it feels like our worlds are shattering and that we are the only ones that carry this weight, and on most part it is merely because we carry the weight alone.

When sharing our stories, we find comfort in knowing that we are understood, empathised with, and just simply human. We take inspiration from the stories of others and find that it is okay that our lives haven’t gone the way we expected them to.

We find release in the comforting reactions of those who care and connect with those who surround us on a human level. In the most explosively awakening culture shock, in the most wonderfully accepting environment, a seed was planted and from that point on, I’ve growingly discovered my true self. I began to write.