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The Life Of An Expatriate Is Not All Sweetness And Light

By: Don Saunders Sitting in your lounge and looking out across your windswept and rain soaked garden it is easy to picture yourself living a new life in a new country, but just how does this picture in your mind's eye compare to the reality once you have moved overseas? Well, this is not perhaps as easy a question to answer as you might think.

Perhaps the most significant problem is that there are so many variables to take into account and Such a large number of factors which are simply unknown at the beginning. It is very easy, for example, to believe that the fact that you do not speak the language is unimportant as, in the short term at least, you may well be able to get by in your mother tongue and will always be able to pick up enough of the language in the longer term. But just how easy is it for you to learn a language and just how simple easy is it to learn the language of your chosen country?

You may also be excited about the prospect of all that exotic food, but just how is a possibly substantial change in your diet going to affect your health? You may very well have experienced some wonderful restaurant food on holiday trips but is this really the sort of food you will be enjoying on a daily basis when you are shopping and cooking for yourself?

All of these problems are of course relatively minor when it comes to comparing them to adjusting mentally to living in what is not only a different country, but frequently a very different culture. The things which you have thought of as both fascinating and curious when on holiday could well present you with considerable difficulty when they are part and parcel of your daily life.

Most countries with a sizeable expatriate community develop a strong support network, which often includes an expat club which holds regular meetings, organizes outings and events, publishes its own newspaper and much more. At first sight this may seem to be extremely comforting but it is worth thinking about why the expatriates in the country have found it necessary to create such an extensive support network. Indeed, when you examine the extent to which the lives of many expatriates revolve around the expat community you might well find yourself asking why they want to live overseas in the first place.

In point of fact a fair number of expats find that, once the novelty wears off, they regret their decision to move overseas but have in many cases burnt their bridges and now find themselves with no alternative other than to stay where they are and to make the most of what is a far from an ideal situation.

Of course this is not the case with all expats and, as an expat myself, I can tell you that there are also many of us who are extremely happy with our decision to live overseas and would not wish to turn back the clock. For many thousands of people each year the decision to move overseas turns out to be the best decision they have ever made and one which they most certainly do not regret. By is it possible to tell which group you are likely to join before you take your decision?

Regretably, you can never be sure, but there are a number of things which you can do to increase the chances of your decision being one which you will be glad you made.

The most important thing that you can do is to try the water so to speak and this means living in your chosen country for a fair length of time before cutting your ties with home. And the critical word here is 'living'.

It is no good simply visiting the country regularly on holiday, staying in a hotel and dining out in restaurants. Ideally you need to spend a minimum of a year in the country and to cast off any thoughts of being on holiday. You have to make a determined effort to live as you would wish to live in the long term, staying away from tourist areas and activities and becoming part of the local community. Live just like a local, doing your own shopping and cooking and taking the time to learn about the local history, culture and lifestyle, while at the same time beginning to learn the language.

If you stay away from the expat community and integrate yourself into the local community from the very start you will quickly find out whether or not you would be making a wise decision to live overseas permanently.

Article Source: http://www.lifeweightloss.com

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