As I sit down to write this post, I think about how much life has changed over the past year. Today marks one year since that heart-wrenching day when my study abroad program told us we needed to go home, due to the beginning of the pandemic. As I recall how things unfolded in my host country, it wasn’t until the U.S. released its statement regarding travel restrictions that people started to really take things seriously. Even then, Sweden took a different approach when it came to tackling the virus compared to the rest of the Western world. It did not have a strict lockdown, and schools and businesses remained open, even in the spring.
Now, this post is not just going to be about Covid-19, because none of us wants to think about this pandemic and its impact on our everyday lives even more than we have to. However, my ultimate goal is to allow you to step into my shoes and recognize how there are different ways of thinking other than what you may be used to. As Americans, we are often positioned to believe that the U.S. is what makes the world go round. I have certainly held that ideology growing up, because the education we receive heavily emphasizes our assets while trying to hide a lot of our deficits.
