In case you are amongst those who ever wondered why do people leave the comfort of their homes to go live amongst "strangers", then you have surely never tasted the flavour of being an expat.
What is so great about it? Well, maybe nothing. The greatness of travelling is the same as eating a burger instead of your mother's home cooked meal. It's the freedom, the rush, the challenge, the change and above all the benefit of favourable circumstances. Nothing beats the burger, you know that.
1) Social freedom.
Show me one who has never felt the urge to escape the social magnifying glass. That sounds a bit like social phobia, I know, but if you have that type of inquisitive mind, experimental philosophy and find comfort in reinventing yourself, then shifting the ground you stand on can add some value to your life. Imagine that world where you can be whoever and do whatever because you have that special status of being a " foreigner". It's mostly a hit than a miss, and you will definitely have nobody to judge you according to their local standards, because, well, you are not part of their standards, and that is the benefit of being an outsider.
2) The novelty.
Some of us get tired of seeing the living surrounded by the same faces everyday, the same people, same manners, same predictable gossips, same thinking patters, same social structure, same expectations and all in all same cultural surroundings. When you get exhausted of all the family drama and the daily crap at your everyday job and when you reach that point where you simply feel the need of a major change in your life, you pack your backs, walk out the door and plan to never come back. As an expat, you get exactly that, a new environment to be yourself, the new page of your life.
3) The travel.
One of the benefits of working / studying / living abroad is that you get more chances to indulge in spontaneous trips, within the country, outside the country, eat from the local bus station and sleep in the airport waiting for the connecting flights. Taste the sweetness of time pass over a Starbucks Cafe with a stranger talking nothing or to just zip a tea and check out the people from other countries. It's pretty cool to have that experience of booking flights to have your "best travel agent" and to know people. Yes, you get to know people. Willingly or unwillingly, for survival purposes you build a network of interesting people and yes, you do start trusting people more than you did back home.
4) Exotic shopping.
It depends now on how you prefer to spend your cash. There is always the local market with an abundance of artistry crafts that give you the best value for your 1$ best spent ever, and there's the other side of the shopping where you can cross the border and do your shopping like a boss. I don't know about others but I am hooked on the malls of Bangkok. Can't wait to get there sooner. And I love the shopping at duty frees in some of the international airports.. I'm actually fantasising about getting one of those in-between jobs type of jobs and work for a month at a perfumery in a duty free shop..
5) It raises your spirits.
Changing cultures and trying to adapt, has the best of benefits that it sort of builds that altered reality where everything seems to work out just fine and while you're at it, you feel constantly puzzled and amazed at how things are working out in the most unexpected of ways. You might find yourself laughing at the face of trouble, get over it and move on, simply because everything feels like a counter clock type of race where you don't have the time to lament yourself over spilled milk. You become better at solving problems and more of a hands-on person which in turn, makes you more successful. As my father used to say, God bless him and rest him in peace, seeing the world saves your brain from becoming a pickle.
Much love,
Alina Alice
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