A521.3.4.RB_MilliganSteven

I have learned a great deal about who I am and how I want to live my life through my parents and different places I’ve lived.  My father was in the Army when I was young, so we moved quite a bit.  After he got out, we continued to move around the United States every couple of years.  Because of this my family was always more important to me than friends.  I knew I would probably say goodbye to my friends in a year or two, but my family would stay by my side.  This was reality for me and has since shaped the way I live my life.  While friends will always be important, family will come number one to me.  When I was nineteen I moved out of my home for the first time.  This first move took me to the other side of the world and landed me in the Philippines.  I was serving a mission there for my church.  I was expected to learn the language, teach the people, provide service and work twelve hours a day, 7 days a week for two years.  We had part of our Monday for shopping, cleaning and getting things done around the house.

I’ll never forget my first day in the Philippines.  I was exhausted from jetlag, trying to find my way around the airport, to the bus terminal and on to the mission home we would be staying before I was to move on to Olongapo city.  My language skills were beyond subpar and I pretty much had no idea what I was getting myself into.  As we left the airport and got on a bus I witnessed a level of poverty that I had only seen on TV.  I saw families living in scrap wood and scrap metal homes built up under bridges.  Many of these homes would be swept away during heavy rain only to be rebuilt the next day.  I saw little children running in the streets with torn up and dirty clothes and busted up sandals.  Over time I would come to know and love these kids.  They would shape the way I would treat my own child.  We slowly made our way through the heavy traffic, thick pollution and broken, windy streets.  Over the next two years, I would learn the language, serve the people and due to my accident prone nature, spend quite a bit of time in the various. 

It has been ten years since I left that country.  Not a day goes by that I don’t look back and think about how grateful I am for the time I spent there. Having grown up in a first world country and dealing with first world problems, I was able to see, if only for a short period, what it is like for much of the rest of the world.  Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how grateful I am for the schooling I’ve had, the job I go to everyday and the family I can provide for.  I have friends still living in the Philippines, including my brother, that are dealing with poverty, malnutrition, flooding and pollution.  I constantly feel the desire to go back and do more work, or help where I can.  That experience changed my life for the better and will stick with me forever.  I see the world in a different way because of it.  Whenever I begin to feel sorry for myself, or think I can’t handle life, I look back and remember, there are people dealing with much more than I am.  It is my responsibility to do what I can to live life to the fullest and help others in the ways I can.
          Another experience that has stuck with me for a while that took place while I was in the Philippines changed the way I see other people and helped me to develop a need to understand other cultures and see things from others points of view.  In one of the areas I lived I had a friend that worked with myself and the other missionary I lived with at the time.  This person was a newly baptized member and had a desire to work with us daily.  We were great friends so I looked forward to this.  I was young and naïve and would sometimes tease my friend about things that went on in the Philippines.  By American standards, some of the things that go on there culturally are way off from what I was used to.  In some of the areas I lived chickens were sacrificed when a new home was built, umbilical cords from newborns were nailed to front doors and all types of animals, including dogs, were eaten for meals.  This of course was different and shocking to me for a while.  One day when I was teasing my friend about some of these things, he got really serious for a second, turned to me and said, “I won’t tease you about your culture if you stop teasing me about mine.”  This put me back for a second and surprised me.  I then realized what I had been doing in my teasing.  I had been pointing out the differences between us.  When my friend only wanted to do what we were doing and be more like us because he saw us as good people, I had been pointing out how different we were.  I quickly apologized, changed my attitude and we continued on as best friends.  This lesson stuck with me for a long time though.  My views and experiences in this world are extremely limited.  I truly only have a sample of one to go by.  Each person I come in contact with has a different experience, upbringing and view on the world than I do.  If I can seek to learn and understand the way they see things I will be less likely to judge others and jump to conclusions.  This lesson has helped me on countless occasions when I needed to think before I spoke or listen before I acted.  I will be forever grateful for my friend’s candid nature and for putting me in my place.

Both of these experience have affected how I treat people in the work environment.  Being in the military I work with many people from various backgrounds.  I do my best to understand where they come from, what they grew up with and try to see things from there point of view.  Increasing my empathy and understanding for others, I believe, will increase my ability to lead and take care of them.  I am not perfect at this, but I am constantly trying and working to improve myself.