How My First Day Living Overseas Felt Like I Stepped Out Of A Shower

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Have you ever spent the day cleaning out a dusty attic, basement, or garage?

You don’t feel it all at once, but you slowly start getting dirtier and dirtier.  The dust and cobwebs start to layer on your clothes, in your hair, and on your skin.  You realize you’re dirty, but it doesn’t seem too bad, at the time.

Then you finally finish.

You take a shower.

You put on clean clothes.

Now you feel great.  All the accumulated dirt is gone, and you feel like you’re ready for anything.

That’s how I felt, the first morning I woke up after moving overseas.

It wasn’t fresh-laundered sheets in a five-star hotel that gave me that feeling.  The apartment where I stayed was reasonably clean, but a bit worn.  And the neighborhood was far from spotless.

What I felt was the years of accumulated mental “dust and dirt” that were gone.

How the layers of dirt accumulate on our spirits

There’s a saying that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

Think about that for a moment, and see if it’s true.  Do you all earn about the same amount of money?  Did you all have roughly the same level of education?  Do you all live in the same type of homes?  How many political, religious, and economic views do you have in common?

When you move overseas, you obviously won’t be around these friends.

In a way, you won’t know what to think.

You won’t know how close is too close, when it comes to personal space.  You won’t know how aggressive to be when lining up.  The amount of money you have may put you in a different social class than you’re used to.  Is the local “dream” a house with a big yard and a white picket fence?

When I moved overseas, I had to discover what was normal again.

Many of the lessons I had naturally learned over the years were suddenly worthless in this new environment.  And there I was, without anyone to give me signals when I wasn’t following the local customs.

This kind of change worries many people.

Why you benefit from getting rid of those “layers of mental dirt”

However, getting rid of your pre-conceived thoughts can also have a great, positive impact on your life.

Your friends and family may have subtly, or not so subtly, made sure you “fit in”.

Think about all the things you’ve always wanted to do, but never tried – because someone else put limits on you.

Did you give up your desire to be an artist, because your parents told you to get “a real job”?

Did you give up your dream of starting your own business, because your friends told you, “95 percent of new businesses fail”?

How long were you the person you were told to be, and not the person you wanted to be?

Start over with a clean state of mind

When you’re away from all the people who expect you to be a certain way, you can start re-building your life the way you’ve always desired.

Of course, just because you’re in a new country, doesn’t mean you should forget about everything you believe in.

But you can focus on your important beliefs.

I keep mine pretty simple – don’t lie, cheat, steal, threaten violence, or initiate violence.

Those are some of my core beliefs, and that’s what I use to guide my actions.  Those are also what I use to judge the people in my life.  If someone doesn’t live by these same principles, they aren’t someone I want to be around.

Even with those simple beliefs, you often get into “definition games.”

If someone says they’ll be somewhere at a certain time, and they don’t show up, does that mean they lied and were disrespectful of your time, or is it not that important to you?  If someone charges you a higher price than another customer, does that mean he cheated you, or is he just a shrewd businessman?

When you’re with your friends, you’ve probably all agreed on what is acceptable.  You didn’t have a meeting about it.  But if someone constantly does something you don’t agree with, they’re probably not going to be someone you consider a friend.

When I first started re-evaluating what was important in my life, it was a bit disorienting.

However, if started to become fun.  It was like being a kid again.  You experience the world without the biases we all build up over time.  You start to find a few more reasons to be happy during the day.  You actually start taking time to “stop and smell the roses.”

To me, that’s what life is about – constantly growing, learning, and experiencing new things.

So don’t worry that everything will be new and unfamiliar.

Instead, be happy about it.