One of the questions tonight was something like, "one of the best decisions you ever made, or best choices", and mine was moving away from the U.S. I was no longer happy where I was. I'd also suddenly lost a job I loved. I needed a change of scenery, which is why I traveled to Europe – a trip that grew from two weeks to five weeks, to nine weeks, and finally 11 weeks across seven countries. Then I returned to the U.S. to think about what I wanted to do next and where.
I always wanted to live abroad and to live in a major city. I always thought it would be Paris – or somewhere in France – and at some point, maybe I will live there. But Zagreb, Croatia and Croatians took me by surprise. I never saw it coming.
I think leaving one's comfort zone is foreign to most, whereas I've been moving around and changing careers since I graduated from college. So, it is my normal to leave for somewhere else. I have become more fearless as I've gotten older. I want to do, see, and experience what I can, while I can.
And, I realize that this must have taken my friends by surprise, too, that I would up and move far away, so that is why they think I'm "brave." In reality, I am just seeking happiness and a new way of life.
Elizabeth, I am very happy to hear that you, too, get more fearless as you get older. I think that those of us who want to challenge ourselves and change our surroundings need to accept that others will simply not understand, and will call us "brave". The key, I think, is not to let what they say or think affect us too much. I hope that you will enjoy your life in Zagreb or wherever else life takes you!
Thank you for sharing! I'm actually doing something similar this year, moving from Koh Phangan, Thailand to Valencia, Spain. I'm not leaving a tenured position or anything but we so have a property development company here that we're going to continue running from there which is a bit mental but we a business partner and we plan to split our time here, so we are hopeful our plan will work out. Still, we do get called crazy once in a while! Any tips for moving from one country to another abroad?
I'm so glad you found this post helpful, Kaila. Your plan does sound ambitious, but not crazy. I'm not sure I have any advice to offer outside of what I wrote in the essay "Are You One of the Few Americans Who Really Could Move to Europe?" You could also listen to my interview on Elizabeth.Ink, I suppose (https://elizabethink.substack.com/p/finding-home-718). It's really just a question of trying to be as patient as possible and not expecting things to go smoothly. Best of luck!
Thank you, Amber! I am flattered, especially because I have read your work and see you as someone who already has all the strength she needs! I look forward to hearing about your expat experiences.
I enjoyed reading your tale of liberation and congratulate you for having had the courage of your convictions. I noted your disclaimer about privilege and can also imagine why some would remain in positions that are no longer fully comfortable--such as obligations to care for a chronically and seriously ill child.
When I made a major career change after 19 years in a secure position at a well-known university in Cambridge MA, one colleague remarked with astonishment that I was "leaving a job for life." Such was the view toward academic job security, and from your essay it seems that's a global phenomenon. But I was motivated by reasons dissimilar to your, I think: dismay with decisions on the future direction of my department, and on one decision in particular that I felt cost the life of a student; my own research activity had also led me to feel that the some of what we offered in curriculum was simply convenient rather than historically well-founded.
When nine years and three jobs later I accepted a position in Ireland, several colleagues expressed envy, and a few remarked that they thought the decision was "brave." But this time the motivation was even more personal than before. Having had to oversee the redundancies of twenty members of staff (meeting with individuals to tell them, face to face, that there job was eliminated and absorbing their reaction takes a toll) and being impacted by issues related to the nature of medical insurance in the US, it was clearly again a time for another major change: moving to a another country, a country with a heart, where my personal values were better reflected in the culture and public policy.
I've never looked back, and I've never been called upon to defend the decision. And I am so much happier.
What a fascinating story, John! As a fellow refugee from academia, I appreciate your courage. And yes, I would infinitely rather conduct the one-on-one meetings I related here to the ones you describe. That must have been terrible.
I’ve come to many of the same realizations over the years (and am continuing to do so/“relearn” them, in some cases). Also… “Doing a Gregory”, I love this! 😂 Time to integrate it into common parlance, let’s goooooo
Thanks, Michael! I am glad that we're heading in the same direction, in terms of self-discovery. As for "doing a Gregory", feel free to use it! Would that there were royalties on such expressions...
I would suggest most other people see things like this, where someone is making a brave decision, only in terms of it's impact on their own lives and self.
Regarding the work, some will judge your decision in terms of workload and perhaps own ambitions and opportunities. Detached and selfish, but logical.
But on the personal level, I think many people are challenged when someone makes a brave or adventurous decision because it challenges their own opinion of themselves, makes them seem inadequate, or worse, makes them afraid that others see them as inadequate. The concern is, for example, that they go home and their partner will say, "They did it, why don't we?" Or worse, "......why won't you?"
You are correct that most people don't really care. Most of us quickly move on, dismiss that person that 'abandoned' the community, not from rancour but maybe from self preservation. For much of my life I have lived on boats, and one of the things I like about it is the constant turnover of people. I make friends, often good friends, we help each other with stuff, socialise, share our stories, and then one or other moves on. Occasionally we'll keep in touch, even for a few years, but our lives head in different directions, geographically and psychologically, and the friendship fades away. I consider that healthy in a world of, what seems to me, needy and lonely people.
Oh wow, this really resonated. As someone who has “dared to radically change her life” multiple times, I’ve often been puzzled by people’s reactions. I hadn’t come across “normative social influence” before….and particularly the idea that their reactions are really much more “wait, could I see myself doing that?” That explains a lot. And their reactions to me.
Sue, I'm glad that the post resonated, but also gave you some new insights. I'd say that as a general rule, people are thinking about themselves, not about you.
Sounds like you're the perfect audience for Living Elsewhere! Welcome aboard!
Thank you, Mike! Yes, I did. As someone who taught both English and writing for years, I am quite aware of all of the rules about writing. But as a writer, I am also aware that it’s sometimes most effective to flout the rules. In this particular case, the title is interrogative only in the most facile, syntactic sense. Functionally, it is a challenge (an interjection), and could be written “How dare you change your life!” But I elected to leave it without punctuation, thus forcing the reader to do a bit more work to figure out what it means, which hopefully generates more engagement. At least, that was my thinking.
This posts resonates so much! I quit my job in March 2022 and moved to Paris. A few months ago I relocated to Barcelona. I went from Senior Legislative Advisor to Entrepreneur. Not easy, but worth it!
That sounds very exciting, Betina! I can imagine that it’s been both thrilling and stressful, at least of my own experience is any guide. And having lived in both Paris and Barcelona, I like your taste in cities.
Perfect YouTube from Alain de Botton (don’t you just love him!).
It brings to mind the rather famous quote “ those who matter don't care, and those who care don’t matter”. The people who know and love us will be supportive. No one else matters
Living a life that doesn’t meet people’s expectations is both easier and harder than I thought. Easier because, like you say, people are too busy with their own lives to notice or care much. Harder because it forces you to make your own decisions in life, without the comfort of making the expected, mainstream decisions. You’re kind of traveling through the unknown.
I consider you a role model for how to happily live a more unconventional life, and you have helped me a lot in my own journey through the unknown. Thank you.
Tove, thank you so much for saying that. I think you too are a model of choosing to go one's own way. That must be especially hard, I think, for Swedes, since conformism and "not sticking out" has such a strong grip on the culture. So congratulations to you!
With regard to it being harder to make decisions, I agree with that too—and that is why I think it is crucial to be fully aware of your values. They are what help guide us in choosing our way.
I’m surprised to hear this about the Swedes. When I was a kid and throughout my teenage years in Indonesia, all I wanted to do was to leave my country. One of the biggest reasons was that I was tired of other people challenging my choices with: “What will other people think/say?” I never understood why I should care about others people’s opinions. Not aligning with my own values just doesn’t feel right. Often, loneliness is the price to pay, but I much rather be true to myself than compromise.
Beata, I understand your perspective completely. There is definitely something adaptive about normative social influence, in that it can help people avoid certain mistakes. But it sets a very low bar, and those of us with a keener awareness of our values and a greater ambitions for self-fulfillment often have to break away and follow our own path, which can be quite lonely at times.
As someone who always "colored inside the lines", as I get older I give myself permission to color wildly outside those lines and not care what anyone thinks!
I blew up my life in 2017 when I moved to Finland for love.
Except that’s what it looked like from other people’s perspectives. For me, I’d already left the job I loved, the community I loved, the house I loved, in Adelaide to move to Melbourne. It was like moving country. As a teacher, you’d think things wouldn’t be so different but the whole educational philosophy underpinning the Victorian Educational system was different to South Australia.
My marriage dissolved as I struggled to find my feet in a career I had loved so much.
I reconnected with someone from a place I’d lived in on exchange at 17 and it felt like a no-brainer to move to live with him. It’s been hard and amazing and hard.
Like you, I’ve had many different reactions to my life’s choice. Lost friends and gained them. But I’m happy! I’m sitting on a couch in house in Wales! I have the privilege of being able to travel. Frugally but freely now I have Finnish citizenship.
Building my business and finding an income on my terms is challenging but worth it.
Thanks for writing about your experience. I think it helps others to see there are choices they didn’t know they had!
Lisa, it sounds like your life has also been a real adventure, with all of the ups and downs that that implies. I am very glad that you have landed in a good place now and are enjoying life. I am also tickled that while for me, changing my life meant leaving "norden", for you, it meant going there. It just goes to show how everyone's journey is different, and that we shouldn't judge others based on what we do ourselves.
One of the questions tonight was something like, "one of the best decisions you ever made, or best choices", and mine was moving away from the U.S. I was no longer happy where I was. I'd also suddenly lost a job I loved. I needed a change of scenery, which is why I traveled to Europe – a trip that grew from two weeks to five weeks, to nine weeks, and finally 11 weeks across seven countries. Then I returned to the U.S. to think about what I wanted to do next and where.
I always wanted to live abroad and to live in a major city. I always thought it would be Paris – or somewhere in France – and at some point, maybe I will live there. But Zagreb, Croatia and Croatians took me by surprise. I never saw it coming.
I think leaving one's comfort zone is foreign to most, whereas I've been moving around and changing careers since I graduated from college. So, it is my normal to leave for somewhere else. I have become more fearless as I've gotten older. I want to do, see, and experience what I can, while I can.
And, I realize that this must have taken my friends by surprise, too, that I would up and move far away, so that is why they think I'm "brave." In reality, I am just seeking happiness and a new way of life.
Elizabeth, I am very happy to hear that you, too, get more fearless as you get older. I think that those of us who want to challenge ourselves and change our surroundings need to accept that others will simply not understand, and will call us "brave". The key, I think, is not to let what they say or think affect us too much. I hope that you will enjoy your life in Zagreb or wherever else life takes you!
Thank you for sharing! I'm actually doing something similar this year, moving from Koh Phangan, Thailand to Valencia, Spain. I'm not leaving a tenured position or anything but we so have a property development company here that we're going to continue running from there which is a bit mental but we a business partner and we plan to split our time here, so we are hopeful our plan will work out. Still, we do get called crazy once in a while! Any tips for moving from one country to another abroad?
I'm so glad you found this post helpful, Kaila. Your plan does sound ambitious, but not crazy. I'm not sure I have any advice to offer outside of what I wrote in the essay "Are You One of the Few Americans Who Really Could Move to Europe?" You could also listen to my interview on Elizabeth.Ink, I suppose (https://elizabethink.substack.com/p/finding-home-718). It's really just a question of trying to be as patient as possible and not expecting things to go smoothly. Best of luck!
Yes I will absolutely check out that podcast and read that article! Thanks for the resources ☺️
As an aspiring American expat, I draw so much strength from your words. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thank you, Amber! I am flattered, especially because I have read your work and see you as someone who already has all the strength she needs! I look forward to hearing about your expat experiences.
I enjoyed reading your tale of liberation and congratulate you for having had the courage of your convictions. I noted your disclaimer about privilege and can also imagine why some would remain in positions that are no longer fully comfortable--such as obligations to care for a chronically and seriously ill child.
When I made a major career change after 19 years in a secure position at a well-known university in Cambridge MA, one colleague remarked with astonishment that I was "leaving a job for life." Such was the view toward academic job security, and from your essay it seems that's a global phenomenon. But I was motivated by reasons dissimilar to your, I think: dismay with decisions on the future direction of my department, and on one decision in particular that I felt cost the life of a student; my own research activity had also led me to feel that the some of what we offered in curriculum was simply convenient rather than historically well-founded.
When nine years and three jobs later I accepted a position in Ireland, several colleagues expressed envy, and a few remarked that they thought the decision was "brave." But this time the motivation was even more personal than before. Having had to oversee the redundancies of twenty members of staff (meeting with individuals to tell them, face to face, that there job was eliminated and absorbing their reaction takes a toll) and being impacted by issues related to the nature of medical insurance in the US, it was clearly again a time for another major change: moving to a another country, a country with a heart, where my personal values were better reflected in the culture and public policy.
I've never looked back, and I've never been called upon to defend the decision. And I am so much happier.
What a fascinating story, John! As a fellow refugee from academia, I appreciate your courage. And yes, I would infinitely rather conduct the one-on-one meetings I related here to the ones you describe. That must have been terrible.
I'm glad you're much happier now! I am, too.
I’ve come to many of the same realizations over the years (and am continuing to do so/“relearn” them, in some cases). Also… “Doing a Gregory”, I love this! 😂 Time to integrate it into common parlance, let’s goooooo
Thanks, Michael! I am glad that we're heading in the same direction, in terms of self-discovery. As for "doing a Gregory", feel free to use it! Would that there were royalties on such expressions...
I would suggest most other people see things like this, where someone is making a brave decision, only in terms of it's impact on their own lives and self.
Regarding the work, some will judge your decision in terms of workload and perhaps own ambitions and opportunities. Detached and selfish, but logical.
But on the personal level, I think many people are challenged when someone makes a brave or adventurous decision because it challenges their own opinion of themselves, makes them seem inadequate, or worse, makes them afraid that others see them as inadequate. The concern is, for example, that they go home and their partner will say, "They did it, why don't we?" Or worse, "......why won't you?"
You are correct that most people don't really care. Most of us quickly move on, dismiss that person that 'abandoned' the community, not from rancour but maybe from self preservation. For much of my life I have lived on boats, and one of the things I like about it is the constant turnover of people. I make friends, often good friends, we help each other with stuff, socialise, share our stories, and then one or other moves on. Occasionally we'll keep in touch, even for a few years, but our lives head in different directions, geographically and psychologically, and the friendship fades away. I consider that healthy in a world of, what seems to me, needy and lonely people.
Oh wow, this really resonated. As someone who has “dared to radically change her life” multiple times, I’ve often been puzzled by people’s reactions. I hadn’t come across “normative social influence” before….and particularly the idea that their reactions are really much more “wait, could I see myself doing that?” That explains a lot. And their reactions to me.
Sue, I'm glad that the post resonated, but also gave you some new insights. I'd say that as a general rule, people are thinking about themselves, not about you.
Sounds like you're the perfect audience for Living Elsewhere! Welcome aboard!
Thank you, Mike! Yes, I did. As someone who taught both English and writing for years, I am quite aware of all of the rules about writing. But as a writer, I am also aware that it’s sometimes most effective to flout the rules. In this particular case, the title is interrogative only in the most facile, syntactic sense. Functionally, it is a challenge (an interjection), and could be written “How dare you change your life!” But I elected to leave it without punctuation, thus forcing the reader to do a bit more work to figure out what it means, which hopefully generates more engagement. At least, that was my thinking.
A insightful and inspiring piece! I'm curious about whether you put some thought into not adding a question mark to the post title.
This posts resonates so much! I quit my job in March 2022 and moved to Paris. A few months ago I relocated to Barcelona. I went from Senior Legislative Advisor to Entrepreneur. Not easy, but worth it!
That sounds very exciting, Betina! I can imagine that it’s been both thrilling and stressful, at least of my own experience is any guide. And having lived in both Paris and Barcelona, I like your taste in cities.
Perfect YouTube from Alain de Botton (don’t you just love him!).
It brings to mind the rather famous quote “ those who matter don't care, and those who care don’t matter”. The people who know and love us will be supportive. No one else matters
Thanks, Teyani! To answer your two points:
1. Yes! I sort of want to have Alain de Botton's babies.
2. Exactly. Our true friends are actually self-selecting. We don't really need that many other people.
He is remarkable. And you know what? We only need one. 💞
Good point.
Thank you for this!
I'm someone who is allergic to those big changes in life, so love the quiet nudge of your questions.
Thanks! I think that "quiet nudge" is the phrase of the day for me.
Living a life that doesn’t meet people’s expectations is both easier and harder than I thought. Easier because, like you say, people are too busy with their own lives to notice or care much. Harder because it forces you to make your own decisions in life, without the comfort of making the expected, mainstream decisions. You’re kind of traveling through the unknown.
I consider you a role model for how to happily live a more unconventional life, and you have helped me a lot in my own journey through the unknown. Thank you.
Tove, thank you so much for saying that. I think you too are a model of choosing to go one's own way. That must be especially hard, I think, for Swedes, since conformism and "not sticking out" has such a strong grip on the culture. So congratulations to you!
With regard to it being harder to make decisions, I agree with that too—and that is why I think it is crucial to be fully aware of your values. They are what help guide us in choosing our way.
I’m surprised to hear this about the Swedes. When I was a kid and throughout my teenage years in Indonesia, all I wanted to do was to leave my country. One of the biggest reasons was that I was tired of other people challenging my choices with: “What will other people think/say?” I never understood why I should care about others people’s opinions. Not aligning with my own values just doesn’t feel right. Often, loneliness is the price to pay, but I much rather be true to myself than compromise.
Beata, I understand your perspective completely. There is definitely something adaptive about normative social influence, in that it can help people avoid certain mistakes. But it sets a very low bar, and those of us with a keener awareness of our values and a greater ambitions for self-fulfillment often have to break away and follow our own path, which can be quite lonely at times.
As someone who always "colored inside the lines", as I get older I give myself permission to color wildly outside those lines and not care what anyone thinks!
I love that framing Linda, time to colour outside the lines a bit!
That sounds terrific, Linda! Go crazy with the colors!
I can relate to much of this.
I blew up my life in 2017 when I moved to Finland for love.
Except that’s what it looked like from other people’s perspectives. For me, I’d already left the job I loved, the community I loved, the house I loved, in Adelaide to move to Melbourne. It was like moving country. As a teacher, you’d think things wouldn’t be so different but the whole educational philosophy underpinning the Victorian Educational system was different to South Australia.
My marriage dissolved as I struggled to find my feet in a career I had loved so much.
I reconnected with someone from a place I’d lived in on exchange at 17 and it felt like a no-brainer to move to live with him. It’s been hard and amazing and hard.
Like you, I’ve had many different reactions to my life’s choice. Lost friends and gained them. But I’m happy! I’m sitting on a couch in house in Wales! I have the privilege of being able to travel. Frugally but freely now I have Finnish citizenship.
Building my business and finding an income on my terms is challenging but worth it.
Thanks for writing about your experience. I think it helps others to see there are choices they didn’t know they had!
Lisa, it sounds like your life has also been a real adventure, with all of the ups and downs that that implies. I am very glad that you have landed in a good place now and are enjoying life. I am also tickled that while for me, changing my life meant leaving "norden", for you, it meant going there. It just goes to show how everyone's journey is different, and that we shouldn't judge others based on what we do ourselves.
Exactly 😁 I regularly escape (currently in Wales) which I think helps.
Thank you for an excellent reminder!
Thank YOU, Jen!