HOW LIVING ABROAD CAN HELP CHANGE YOU FOR THE BETTER.

You’re on this page because you want to understand how and why living away abroad can make your life better, yes? Or, because you’re about to leave your comfort zone, your rabbit hole, your safety nest and you want an assurance that it you made the right decision.

This detachment to security is a scary fete to most especially those moving away for the first time. Not many are able to achieve this. Why would you leave familiar behind? Your home, your routine, your job, your family? Why?

“Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.”   

-- Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Roads

But why not? If you were given the chance to live somewhere, meet different people, have amazing adventures, learn new things, cultures or languages, why not then? You will never know the wonderful changes living away may bring you as a person, and as a human being. The world is vast and full of interesting color and diversity, and to embrace this will not only enrich you socially but help you grow up as well. Much importance on the latter!

Let me share my personal experience. If you lived in the safety of your parents’ generosity, I was once like you. I went to a private school, had the same friends from childhood, the same home, and house help in my life. My routine was mostly sheltered although occasionally I was gratefully subjected to real life.

Then, in 2004 my traveling life began and in 2006, I  moved to a country I knew little of nor can even speak the language: Japan. At the first house I lived in, I lived with 19 other people from different nationalities and ethnicities. I come from a big family so I’m used to having people around, but 19 was a lot! Plus me, there were 20 different cultures, personalities, moods, and preferences all in one house. It was tough in the beginning despite my exposure to foreigners back home (relatives and family friends). Living with all these differences with occasional arguments was a big change I had to adjust to.

Every evening and weekend was a fascination of learning more and new things about my housemates. One can speak 5 languages fluently; another can cook authentic dishes from his hometown. Others spoke of their countries with pride, and some shared their culture over cheese and wine. They would say that they learnt a lot about the Philippines from me, but I think I got the best end of it all, for apart from becoming more knowledgeable and worldly, I became more independent. Before I came over I didn't even know how work a washing machine let alone wash my clothes, cook rice, or make any meal successfully at that. How could I when these were all done for me before?

My housemates on many occasions helped me grow up. During my first month when they all watched me struggle from not knowing where to put the coins in the machine, to shrinking the only clothes I brought with me, to almost burning the kitchen with my cooking. They taught me to become an independently domesticated person. It was so embarrassing to realize that others much younger than I have been living on their own for years and in different countries even. Eventually, I learnt and mastered personal and house chores as much as learning to love the world outside my suburban life. 

Through the years, many different housemates, various international friends and strangers, and different countries later, I grew up.

 I came to love British and Aussie sarcasm and humour, Indian food and other cuisines, American landscapes, the eccentricities of the Japanese, Spanish passions and the Italians’ love of life, the Balinese lifestyle, and many more life-changing lessons. I never looked back. Not in the sense that I would never go home, I do for holidays and I have more appreciation and respect for our househelp. In fact, I get embarrassed when the washer would take my clothes or have the maid cook my food. It’s just not the same. But most importantly, I became a lover of life, culture, and adventures abroad. I just can't have enough.

These are just a few of how living abroad has changed my life. So, if you do decide to take the traveling path, expect the same and more.

To those who are on the same worldly boat, share yours below.

“It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.” 
― John Green, Paper Towns