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Why don't you move abroad?

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Re: Why don't you move abroad?

#171

Post by 0xEF »

b3ing wrote: post #156
nickd2001 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handful of thoughts. :) The best of the 3 above is having a specific skill set. Anything medical - e:g nursing (good one 'cos less time to retrain) is in short supply worldwide and you can get a local job with visa sponsorship many places. As for experimenting with fascism, USA is sadly by no means the only country going that direction, and the USA's political system may be more resilient to such take-overs, guess we…

The US requires 0 days off nationally, not sure where you got 2 weeks. I had a job once where we only got 5 days off but had to be there a year first. It was the best IT job I could get at the time.

Not a requirement, no, but certainly a selling point when shopping for a new job.

Personally, I am not a fan of the whole PTO system we have here, mostly because it is used against us. We are expected to be at work unless we request PTO, and we end up having to use PTO for things like doctor appointments and seeing our kid graduate, or whatever. It's an absurd joke.

I don't want PTO, and I realize that's an unpopular opinion, but it comes from years of seeing its abuse by employers who think they command our time (and the employees who allow them to).

What I want is simple; if I am at work, pay me, if I am not at work, do not pay me. That's it. That would keep both sides honest. I need to plan/budget for days off and can't game a system. Employers can't hold me hostage and need to look for better ways to incentivize employees to choose to be at work.

Re: Why don't you move abroad?

#172

Post by david-gpu »

sillyfluke wrote: post #170
david-gpu wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes that you come back. What happens most commonly is that after some time abroad you marry (usually a foreigner) and have children who belong where they were born. What now? I speak from experience. I wish people would pause for a moment before universally recommending something that they either have not experienced, or they have gotten away from. Such as Terry Pratchett, who never even lived abroad!

Not a very charitable reading of the grandparent post. They were very upfront about not traveling anymore. They are, if anything by their own explicit example, vouching for the holistic experience of traveling a lot at one point in life and then settling down. This idea that someone should not recommend something if they are not actively doing the thing at this very moment in time is ridiculous, especially when they…

> Not a very charitable reading of the parent post

Sure. I may well have misinterpreted what they said. I hope they accept my apologies.

> This idea that someone should not recommend something if they are not actively doing the thing at this very moment is ridiculous

Is it possible you made a "not very charitable reading" of my post as well?

> They are, if anything by their own explicit example, vouching for the holistic experience of traveling a lot at one point in life and then settling down

...which is not always possible, as I have tried to warn people multiple times in these threads. Once you move to a foreign country, you often end up with professional, relationship, and cultural ties that it is not possible to "settle down" -- by which I think you mean "return to your country of origin", please correct me if I'm wrong.

And, in the meantime, you will progressively become estranged from friends, family, and your own cultural heritage. It creeps up on you and by the time you notice it's often too difficult to do anything about it, especially if you have built family ties in your new country.

Look, I am happy that things turned out great for the OP of this thread. I really am. But recommending it to everybody without caveats is a step too far for me.

Re: Why don't you move abroad?

#173

Post by pluc »

ponector wrote: post #72
pluc wrote: post #5

Because visas. You can't actually move anywhere (well, at least in most of Europe) without a job to sponsor you.

But anyway you need a work to sustain your life. If you have enough money to not work - visa is not an issue then, just pay for it.

There's a vast difference between having enough money to sustain yourself and dropping 100k-200k on a piece of paper.

Re: Why don't you move abroad?

#174

Post by david-gpu »

nickd2001 wrote: post #162
david-gpu wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The mission is complete. You can go home now My wife and children are foreigners; "moving back" would mean uprooting them. Also, I have lived abroad for so long that my country of origin feels foreign at this point, in what is called reverse culture shock. You reach a point where you are a foreigner wherever you are. I'm not saying that it's all been negative; far from it. But I can't universally recommend people t…

I think you're giving invaluable info here and doing a public service :) Having lived abroad a few years myself, its exciting, wonderful, broadens the mind etc, for a certain amount of time. But trade-offs emerge. Loneliness is a thing. Its difficult to make "new old friends". Well, at least, takes time! Living abroad contributed to my getting married later (back home) and being an older Dad. Marrying someone from a…

> I think these issues BTW, apply within one's own country too. [...] Then bingo, one or both settle far from where they grew up. So friends and family are hours away.

YES, absolutely. It happened to my parents and their siblings as well. And it's not something that people get into with a good understanding of the tradeoffs they are making -- it's easy to fool ourselves thinking that videoconferencing and cheap flights will magically eliminate the problem. It doesn't work like that in practice, and I made that mistake myself.

> I wonder if being forced to study nearer home therefore meet a partner from nearer, may lead to higher ultimate happiness. When our kids grow up, I 100% wouldn't wanna "clip their wings" or be selfish. But, also kind of hope they don't permanently move far away

Yeah, that mirrors my sentiment as well. Raising children while away from your extended family is tough. Rather than spending 10 years with extreme childcare responsibilities, I wish we were closer to family so that we could (a) get some hands-on experience with caretaking before raising our own kids, (b) get a couple of hours a week off from taking care of our own kids, and (c) allowing our parents to spend some quality time with their grandchildren without having to travel across continents with small kids to make it happen.

It would have been a more gentle curve spread over more time, and a chance to spend time with our extended family. Now, I've also heard there's a flip side to that, where people get sick of their relatives being too involved in how to raise their kids, etc. It's all a tradeoff.

Re: Why don't you move abroad?

#175

Post by rex_gallorum2 »

david-gpu wrote: post #172
sillyfluke wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a very charitable reading of the grandparent post. They were very upfront about not traveling anymore. They are, if anything by their own explicit example, vouching for the holistic experience of traveling a lot at one point in life and then settling down. This idea that someone should not recommend something if they are not actively doing the thing at this very moment in time is ridiculous, especially when they…

> Not a very charitable reading of the parent post Sure. I may well have misinterpreted what they said. I hope they accept my apologies. > This idea that someone should not recommend something if they are not actively doing the thing at this very moment is ridiculous Is it possible you made a "not very charitable reading" of my post as well? > They are, if anything by their own explicit example, vouching for the holi…

You are absolutely correct. Living abroad for any length of time comes with tremendous costs. It changes you permanently.

In the end you can never really go home, because home as you knew it isn't there anymore, and you yourself have changed.

It can be very detrimental in more practical ways too - things few people pause to consider.

Edit:

Beware of the dreaded Ds such as death, divorce, debt, disability, etc. It's easy if you are young and consider a short stay abroad - but growing old abroad is another thing entirely.

Re: Why don't you move abroad?

#176

Post by rex_gallorum2 »

david-gpu wrote: post #125
Melonotromo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mixing up different things and you don't get the point... 1. traveling gives you experiences. You don't need to travel constantly to learn and gain from traveling. 2. Moving away from home (abroad or to a big city) gives you again a lot of new experiences. New insights, new world view. If i move home today, i'm a complet different person than my friends which never left and while certain things might look the…

> You are mixing up different things and you don't get the point Of course I understand the upsides of traveling, and even moving abroad. I have done both myself. Here is the first comment I made on this thread: >>> There are pros and cons to all possibilities, whether it is staying put, traveling as a tourist, or immigrating in a foreign country. What most people who repeat these memes of "moving abroad gives you ne…

Again, you are absolutely correct, and for more reasons than most casual readers here will know.

Re: Why don't you move abroad?

#178

Post by EasyMark »

PrismCrystal wrote: post #150
TrackerFF wrote: post #33

For some, home is where the heart is. 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 lot…

"I've never met anyone that regretted on 'traveling too much'." I have traveled as lifestyle since my late teens and am now in my forties. (I went to uni in a country where lecture attendance isn't compulsory, so many students only come in for the exams, and then I began remote work already in the early millennium.) It is just who I am, and I wouldn't necessarily say I regret it. However, I and loads of people I know…

Thanks for sharing. I know exactly what you’re talking about. I’ve never been a world wide vagabond but I have lived all over the US and Mexico, and I ended up moving back to a place I loved and don’t plan on leaving. I have had so many friends, but my best friends are still my family and close friends from college and highschool. I choose to put down roots, and don’t regret it at all, and there are definite consequences of moving around, especially if you’re not a type A personality who easily makes friends.

Re: Why don't you move abroad?

#179

Post by rcxdude »

david-gpu wrote: post #142
rcxdude wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your first post would have been stronger if you hadn't held up the poster's decision to return home as evidence that travelling could be negative, because that didn't follow on from their post or point whatsoever. The rest of your points can stand without that. (FWIW, I disagree: there is tremendous value in travelling, even if just as a tourist. The main issue is having the resources to do it, which I think…

> I think your first post would have been stronger if you hadn't held up the poster's decision to return home as evidence that travelling could be negative, because that didn't follow on from their post or point whatsoever. This is how the thread went from my perspective: > [Them] I used to do something and then stopped. My life is fantastic now. That said, I recommend everybody to do what I stopped doing; I have nev…

Because the general recommendation, throughout this thread, is to travel when you're relatively young, not to just keep travelling indefinitely. That seems to be the missing gap here. It's possible for something to be valuable to do for some period without it being a good idea to just keep doing it your whole life. (to use an analogy, someone might recommend going to university, but that doesn't mean that you should just spend your whole life doing undergraduate degrees, and you could reasonably critique either option, but not the first by pointing out that someone recommending it didn't keep getting degrees)

Re: Why don't you move abroad?

#180

Post by red-iron-pine »

incomingpain wrote: post #143

As a Canadian, where would I go abroad to? We do have our first ever illegitimate prime minister; found guilty of major civil right violations. Seizing bank accounts without court order or any due process. Arresting people on charges of mischief for words said online. State media willing to publish extreme lies to justify the government's illegal behaviours... It's reasonable to wish to leave Canada; but generally sp…

If you think Trudeau is a problem then you sound like the type who won't do so well in Europe. As a MAGA type I'm sure you'd do alright in the US. Moving for Constitutional Carry is insane.
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