7 Pieces of Wisdom I Wish I Knew Before Living Abroad
Hope these hard-earned lessons help you avoid my mistakes
Permanently moving your base is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make in your life. It's rich and fascinating, but it also blows your mind because the complexity you'll face will be high..
In terms of stress, it’s equated to the peak stress levels you can experience after situations such as death or terminal illness of loved ones.
You wonder why?
Think for a minute- you're not travelling temporarily. What you know as home and comfort is gone. There’s no going back, at least not an easy one. You feel the pressure to stay and figure it out, but it’s too damn hard.
I am an Indian-born who moved around 4 countries such as France, Belgium, Germany and Canada in the last few years, learning some extra-hard lessons along the way.
I wish I knew these pieces of wisdom before I threw my hat into the ring of international moves.
Overestimating how long the honeymoon period will last
This is the headiest phase of the life abroad. You’ll be new for the first 6 months, and if you’re in a location of your dreams, your head could literally be in the clouds.
This happened to me when I moved from India to Paris, the city of my dreams, or rather dreams of uncountable people. I loved everything about it. The language, the food, its centuries-old subway system and the RER trains, which almost always run late and don’t follow a schedule you can understand. Until one day, I didn’t.
When the honeymoon period ends, the reality hits hard and is tougher to recover from.
I learned to handle it better by the time I moved to my 5th home country, Canada. I felt more grounded and knew how the honeymoon period would feel. The small condo we got in downtown also seemed appealing, even though it barely had any space.
Learning
Know you’re in honeymoon mode and know it’ll get over. Accept both situations. You’ll feel much calmer and less heady.
Underestimating how long ’This sucks’ phase will last
Once the honeymoon period gets over, this is where you land next. Most things will suck, you’ll miss home and comfort.
It’s easy to drown in food. My routine in Belgium was to skip dinner and have a waffle and ice-cream every night after coming back from work.
I ended up gaining over 20 extra pounds and feeling extremely lethargic all day.
Learning
Awareness helps. Know this too shall pass. Try to get a fresh perspective- challenge yourself by asking what’s this moment trying to teach me? What’s the gift?
Not realizing the power of community sooner
Often, you won’t have an established social circle when you move.
When I moved to France, I was lucky to be amongst the community of HEC Paris students and their partners from 40+ countries, where my husband pursued his MBA. The community was an immense support in the sense we had a home away from home. People to hang out with, share our journey with, and learn from.
Comparatively, when I moved to Germany, I knew no one and took my time to build connections.
I reached out to some expat groups and Lean In Bonn. These communities helped me find people undergoing similar journeys and make both local and expat friends.
Learning
Figure out soon how you will find a community if you don’t have one. If you’re too introverted, you may prefer 1 or 2 close friends.
Not understanding the overall cost of living
Most people fall into this trap. They often look at only what they’ll earn, not what they’ll spend apart from the basics — food, rent and clothing.
I got a job offer in London, and I was too excited to move.
Thankfully, the firm that offered me the role took a while to figure out the visa process. This gave me the time to do a thorough cost-of-living analysis and count the miscellaneous expenses such as tax, commute.
The analysis made me realize I will hardly save anything. So, by the time this firm came back and cited visa issues, it was easy for me to get over not moving there finally, considering the accurate picture.
Learning
For an accurate picture, it’ll help to talk to your network. Go beyond the obvious things, as there could be a lot to uncover.
Not knowing how your identity will change
It takes time and experience in life to know your own biases and prejudices, and how they affect your understanding.
Let’s say you’re from Nepal. It was your identity until the day you lived there. You’ll keep a part of it, but when you move away permanently, you’ll add to your identity willingly or unwillingly.
My suggestion is to embrace yourself, both old and new parts. Some people cling too well to their age-old beliefs, while others go out of the way to adopt the new culture.
The balance lies somewhere in the middle. Accepting both. It won’t be easy, though.
Learning
Ask yourself, ‘What am I missing because of my assumptions?.’
When I was new to Belgium, I remember asking my husband one day this question. ‘How come other people greet each other nicely when they run into each other on the streets and Indians try to avoid each other?’ His advice — First, don’t be this Indian.
It was hard-hitting, but true. Thankfully, it helped me stop judging others.
Not aware how long adjusting to a new culture and language takes
Language may sometimes be the same, but cultural values and norms will be different everywhere. If language changes, it’s an even bigger transition as so much gets lost in translation. This directly affects connection.
‘La bise’ is the standard cultural greeting in France and Belgium in informal settings. It means air kissing on the sides of the cheek.
In France, it’s done either 2 or 4 times when you greet a person and in Belgium either 1 or 3 times. It was unfamiliar and uncomfortable for me at first. Sometimes I even counted wrong! Thankfully, my friends didn’t mind my awkwardness and helped me learn.
Learning
Learn the keywords of the language and start showing an interest in speaking and asking questions. If you do this consistently, you’ll slowly learn.
I got an egg sandwich made for myself by conversing in French with a chef. First, I was hoping my husband, who was way ahead of me in his French skills, would rescue me. But when I saw he was tired, I jumped right in and managed. The chef was super impressed with my effort.
For cultural norms, it’s best to accept it’ll take time to change.
Ask questions to understand the differences, explain your view and then see if there’s a happy medium. In my case, my work colleagues understood I won’t excel at ‘la bise’ soon and gave me the time.
In normal circumstances, I would have learned it quickly, but if you add everything going on in your life in a new country, it won’t be easy.
Not knowing how complicated the Legal and administrative processes can be
Canada has friendly processes for health and license and tax. Everything is online and explained in step-by-step instructions.
In Germany, the official processes can be tedious and largely managed by paper. On top, the paperwork is only in German. It was hard 4 years ago to put it into translation apps. Reading every mail was stressful and there were about 4–5 essential ones coming in daily. Even my salary slip came via mail.
Laws in Canada are protective of tenants’ rights, but I didn’t see this in the European countries I lived in. The laws favored the owners.
The owner in Germany took advantage of this and we never got our rental deposit money back. I later learned, losing their deposit was a usual occurrence for expats living in Germany.
Learning
Prepare and plan for these in advance with the right information. Don’t let this slide, considering you don’t have time. Make the time to avoid surprises.
Any move abroad will offer you an experience of a lifetime. Learn and prepare.
The mindset shift required for an international transition is — Don’t expect things to be smooth. Because they won’t be.
If we expect everything to go smoothly, this is when the challenge seem bigger than they are.
Being new in a country could make your feelings range from ‘I don’t belong anywhere’ to ‘I belong everywhere’. Ultimately, you become what you choose to believe.
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