Life Abroad: Finding Yourself – Who are you really?

Spending some time abroad gives you a great opportunity to find out exactly the person you are.  And if you have opportunity to spend time in two or three or more countries, you will be able to define yourself quite well.

Why?  Because when you find yourself in a new land, people there have no expectations about the person you are.  About how you might behave, about what you are like.   No friends, employers or family who feel they need to put you in a preset box because they already know all about you.  Or so they think they do.

This is a real opportunity for you experiment a bit.  Want to be a bit more extroverted?  King of the karaoke room?  Or would you like to learn to take the back seat sometimes and listen more to others?

What happens here is that no one has any expectations, so whatever  you do is just fine with your new friends, companions, coworkers or employer.   Unlocked from that cage of expectations, you are suddenly truly free to find out what feels most comfortable to YOU.

I am not suggesting that you target the new culture and country and grab from there how to behave.  I met a guy once who after a few weeks backpacking in country X decided he would squat like a back country villager when he was in a group of people.

Now – I quite doubt that was real  guy and I am sure he would figure that out himself after a while and maybe he just needed to visit a few more places.  But also, maybe he just needed to experiment with that a bit before he figured out it wasn’t really him.  That he wasn’t really a back country peasant (nothing against back country peasants, mind you . . .).

If you get a bit of practice at it, getting a fresh start in several countries,  you’ll begin to realize just what feels comfortable for you.  And how you might behave free of any outside factors: some social inhibitions apply, of course!

If you are having personal problems or mental health issues, I don’t recommend life overseas as the support system you are used to probably doesn’t exist and won’t be there for you when/if you need it.

But if you are a perfectly healthy person who just wonders what it might be like to be free of the constraints placed on you by being in the same place around the same people for a long time then life abroad for a year or two might be a good fit.

Are you curious what you might be like given the freedom to experiment with yourself a bit?

TED’s Tips™ #1:  I don’t usually write “touchy feely” pieces like this, but I just thought I would stretch my own personal envelop!

1 Comment

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  By Cheryl, January 7, 2012 @ 2:11 AM

  I really enjoyed reading this article. Just had a nice period of language study in Spain and could relate to everything you said. Travel is so liberating. Can barely focus now I am home. Thanks!

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