I recall being a Tae Kwon Do practitioner for many years before something amazing happened to me. One day I witnessed my instructor who was a 7th or 8th degree ranked black belt at the time, guzzle beers with his fellow martial arts grandmaster buddies. Before that day I thought alcohol was off limits for serious martial artists. My world was rocked. This man who I had mythologized was just a regular dude who was doing extraordinary things — teaching, influencing, and thriving at it.

When I moved to Korea in 2007, I imagined I would be teaching children in an underserved community. Images of barefoot children, chalkboards, and rows of desks and chairs danced in my little head. Then when I arrived in Pohang, South Korea, I experienced the realization that all that I had imagined about that city in Korea was wrong.

Where had I gotten these ideas?

How did I accept ideas that were so far from the reality?

Who was shaping my reality? Books?

I wasn’t reading much. Movies?

I’d buy that. I consumed more movies and television than any other medium until that time. I still do.

Like the surprise I felt upon learning how modern Korea is, I too was taken aback when the first time I saw monks wearing Adidas sneakers, chatting on cellphones, and once even driving a new Mercedes Benz. Taken together these sights blew my mind.

It didn’t just stop with Korea of course. As I was sitting in a restaurant in Tanzania, among Maasai tribesmen, I was shocked to see them drinking beer and other spirits. Also, at least one, but I presume there are more, was speaking English to me, fluently!