If you know me well, you know I thrive on details.The more, the better.Whenever I endeavor to do anything — be it large or small, at home or at work, with strangers or with friends — I gather as many details as I can: in order to inform myself, make good decisions, and prepare myself as much as possible for what is to come.This love of detail and preparation defines my INTJ personality, and luckily I found myself a professional niche that suits this personality type perfectly (even before I knew what INTJ meant).

So now let’s transplant me into a world where I can generally understand about 75% of what is going on.Does that sound like a pretty high percentage?Maybe better than nothing?Nope, sorry — it is just enough to drive me crazy.

Take my cell phone account, for instance (which can be trying, even under the best of circumstances).German company, German statements, German bills.I can understand the main points of the mail I receive from them.But even when I know what each individual word means, I do not always understand the meaning of the sentence that strings them all together.Throw in my bank statements and the e-mails from my fellowship’s supporting foundation, and this can lead to a lot of frustration, if you let it.

Which brings me to the point of this post: learning that sometimes I am just not going to know everything about everything that could possibly happen.Sometimes I am going to miss the meaning of the fine print.And sometimes I am not going to be as prepared as I would like for life’s events.Surely, I learned these lessons while living in Uganda and Sierra Leone?But to some degree, at least in those places I had my native tongue to rely on. Here, not so much.

So, please join me in raising a glass of Bier (or a cup of Kaffee, if you prefer) to letting go of some of the details!At least until I can master the language, anyway (you didn’t think I would let go completely, did you?).