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> But I was told on day one Twitter orientation to “Walk fast”. Drugged homeless people approached me, one guy tried to hit me while waiting to cross the street. WTF, is this really the reality of living in San Francisco?
I was there a few months last year and this seems like nonsense. To me it seemed like all the homelessness was restricted to a few streets like in skid row.
To people who are considering moving abroad you should do it. Don't let nationalism stop you. You were randomly born in your country. Choose your country. Don't let randomness and some emotional baggage control where you want to live. You have a finite live. Make most of it.
This essay was on someone who had the opportunity to live abroad (US, Japan, Sweden) and decided to live in India. The essay answers the question of why he, personally, has decided to not move abroad again.
The reason? "I think people should live where they are the happiest", which for him is family and friendship - or what you might describe as "emotional baggage."
I've lived in 11 major cities around the world for the past 25 years, but in the end I moved back home to my rural hometown, in my home country. Remote work made that possible. I make probably 20% of what I could have done in high-COL areas like the Bay Area.
But I have a fantastic work-life balance. Make good money, relative to my peers. Clock in 9, clock out 4. Get to spend lots of time on my hobbies, never work any weekends. Live in a peaceful place with zero crime, everything is a 5 min walk from my home. Hiking trail is practically 50m from my doorstep. Family and friends live close by.
I did spend some time fighting FOMO of not living in a big city, which held me back from moving home - but COVID kind of accelerated that decision.
With that said, I always say to younger people that they should try to move out in their 20s-30s, see the world. I've never met anyone that regretted on "traveling too much".
To people who are considering moving abroad you should do it. Don't let nationalism stop you. You were randomly born in your country. Choose your country. Don't let randomness and some emotional baggage control where you want to live. You have a finite live. Make most of it.
You were anything but “randomly born in your country”. You are most likely the latest branch in a sedentary tree rooted both geographically and culturally for centuries, and without that tree you certainly wouldn’t exist. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t travel, perhaps plant a new tree, but the idea that you were born randomly is obviously false.
> But I was told on day one Twitter orientation to “Walk fast”. Drugged homeless people approached me, one guy tried to hit me while waiting to cross the street. WTF, is this really the reality of living in San Francisco?
I was there a few months last year and this seems like nonsense. To me it seemed like all the homelessness was restricted to a few streets like in skid row.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am from India.
India is orders of magnitude better than most African countries. At the very least it’s safe and you can make a living. Indians actually move back to India after living in the west which doesn’t happen with Africans all that often.
Or to give a rather poor analogy for lack of better one, India has premium-business-class experience migrating to West, compared to other APAC, which are put through economy-saver class experience.
To people who are considering moving abroad you should do it. Don't let nationalism stop you. You were randomly born in your country. Choose your country. Don't let randomness and some emotional baggage control where you want to live. You have a finite live. Make most of it.
It's your friends, family and the feeling of belonging. This is culture, not nationalism. I lived in Canada for 10 years before moving back home. I had a great life in Canada, fulfilled things I quite literally never dreamed possible, but I didn't belong.
I lived my life between vacations, just waiting for the time that I can go back home and spend time with family. I realized this is no way to live life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am from India.
India is orders of magnitude better than most African countries. At the very least it’s safe and you can make a living. Indians actually move back to India after living in the west which doesn’t happen with Africans all that often.
it’s amazing how much of the story mirrors my own. Autodidacticism and tech were also my combination of escaping generational poverty, and I had to be the first person in 2 generations to leave the country at all in order to do it. It hopefully strikes at a hint of irony that I am british. However, unlike the author, I did not have a strong familial connection. I miss my homeland but I have no wish to return, the liv…
After nearly forty years in Norway I have no wish at all to return to the UK to live. Every time I listen to BBC R4 I hear some horror story about poverty or poor health. 6 million people (almost 10% of the population) on hospital waiting lists, pre-school children having such bad teeth that they have to have them all removed; that's just a sample from the last two days.
I do enjoy long holidays there as a tourist though because there is so much visible history. And it's warmer than Norway in the summer!
Being in the US, my career is unfortunately the center of my universe because I rely on having it to afford literally anything else. The system here is one build on dependency, and just like in any abusive relationship, they make it very, very hard for us to leave. Our lives are about our jobs, so things like healthcare and taxation are all inextricably ties to our employers. It's not long before you start to realize…