There are many reasons for moving overseas. However, they all eventually come down to one of two things. You want to move away from a place you think is bad, or you want to move to a place you think is good.
Unfortunately, I’ve met a few expats who decided to pack up their problems and bring them to their new country.
Many of these expats are people who don’t agree with the politics of their home country. They don’t like the current president or prime minister. They don’t like the tax policies. They don’t like the wars their country’s military are fighting. They don’t like the welfare programs (they’re either too little or too much).
Whatever their reasons are, these expats decided it was time to leave their home country.
Then, when I meet them in some other country, they spend all their time complaining about the situation they left. They spend all their free time on the Internet, watching the news from back home or reading websites that report on the problems there.
I met one expat who rarely leaves his home, doesn’t speak the local language (even though his wife is from the country), and spends all his day online, watching the news. Frankly, he seemed like a miserable person. He wasn’t happy, and I wasn’t happy being around him.
What you should realize is that there are two forms of stress: distress and eustress.
Distress is what most of think of when we think about stress. Some examples of this are constant political or economic problems. Politicians will always spend their time trying to convince us that if the other team wins, our life will be horrible. No matter who wins the election, the world will never suddenly become perfect. There’s a constant feeling that we can never get past this, and never get away from the stress it causes.
Eustress is a positive form of stress. It is something that we can eventually adapt to. A typical example of eustress is exercise. We have physical stress of pushing ourselves to our limits, but we keep growing stronger, and more able to handle the stress.
You need to decide what you will spend your life focusing on – problems that never disappear, or things that you can do something to overcome.
Identifying the things that cause you stress is good
Using the things you don’t like about your home country is certainly a good way to help you decide what you do want in your new country. Once you know what causes you distress, you can look for a country that doesn’t have that situation (or has very little of it).
But once you’ve moved to your new country, don’t worry about the things that don’t affect you anymore. Think about it – if you moved from a neighborhood because you wanted to get away from criminals and gang members who lived there, you wouldn’t call them up and invite them to your new home. Why do the same thing with the situations that cause you stress?
What I’ve done to leave my stress behind
Personally, I only check the news about things that really have an impact on my current life. For my business, there are a few things I need to keep track of, but that’s the only news I pay attention to.
For anything that is a problem, I make sure that I’m always doing something that will let me make progress with it. Instead of complaining about the rain, I just make sure I have an umbrella.
I’ve also been eating healthier and getting more exercise. Both of these are great ways to help deal with stress.
To me, moving overseas is one part of my plan to live a happier life. Really, that is my focus – to be happier. I suggest you consider that as your focus too, and leave your troubles behind when you move overseas.
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