likened<\/a>\u00a0expats\u00a0to\u00a0addicts: \u201cYou\u2019ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed with sex. You spend all your time talking, not working.\u00a0You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafes.\u201d<\/p>\nThe accusations have stuck, with a few\u00a0updates\u00a0through the ages. According to critics, today\u2019s expats are adventure-junkies who live like royalty outside their home countries. They\u2019re hooked on\u00a0domestic\u00a0helpers and padded salaries. A heady cocktail of money, status and adrenaline is their drug.<\/p>\n
But is this really the nature of the expat \u201caddiction\u201d?\u00a0Are expats a shallow group roaming the globe with fat wallets in search of the next challenge high? Or does the lifestyle offer people something more attractive:\u00a0a quality of life that satisfies the desire to feel like a self-determined individual?<\/p>\n
It\u00a0is impossible to\u00a0make a sweeping statement about the thousands of expats around the world.\u00a0Some go abroad to escape poor economies, while\u00a0others want international experience on their resumes.\u00a0Some\u00a0are backpacker-like explorers of culture, and\u00a0there are\u00a0the\u00a0opportunists\u00a0after\u00a0the corporate package and domestic staff.\u00a0Motivations, lifestyles and tenures mix and match so much it almost renders\u00a0the word \u201cexpat\u201d meaningless.<\/p>\n
However, across all walks of expat life,\u00a0many\u00a0foreigners are united in their hesitation to \u201cgo back,\u201d a description that often means more than just going home\u00a0and\u00a0implies returning to a previous state.<\/p>\n
It\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0about the money, says Natalia Timmerman Blotskaya, a Belarussian expat of\u00a0more than 20\u00a0years who has lived\u00a0in\u00a0the Middle East, Europe and Asia on both local and corporate packages. She says the moment people become expats, they enter a whole new state of mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like becoming a Switzerland, neutral \u2013 politically and emotionally \u2013 and experiencing a culture without having to be involved with the internal affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is where the buzz of the lifestyle begins. Set apart from familiar external influences,\u00a0some\u00a0expats\u00a0stop\u00a0worrying\u00a0about pressures to mold and keep the people around them happy. The challenge of living in a new place\u00a0lets\u00a0them see themselves as individuals rather than citizens of a specific country or members of a culture. This gives them a whole new internal perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn time away from your\u00a0\u2018home\u2019\u00a0environment, you can step away from all those things that have influenced your whole life and reflect on \u2018who am I?\u2019\u201d says\u00a0Nicola Boughton-Smith, a Briton who has spent 7 \u00bd years abroad, with time split between North America and Asia. \u201cYou can deconstruct the things that have made you who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many, this process is liberating. Free from responsibility to family, culture, social pressures and history,\u00a0they\u00a0feel more in control of their own identity. This can lead to the arrogance and selfishness that sparks most expat stereotypes. But it can also lead to more tolerance and empathy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve changed so much as an expat,\u201d says Linda Eunson,\u00a0a\u00a0Canadian\u00a0who has spent\u00a021\u00a0years in Singapore. \u201cI\u2019m more tolerant, have adopted different ways of doing things and am much more open\u2026I feel like a citizen of the world, a jet-setter and that feels pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
The effect snowballs. The more open and comfortable an expat becomes, the more he\u2019s able to network and make friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ability to just randomly meet people is addictive,\u201d\u00a0says Todd Middagh,\u00a0a\u00a0Canadian\u00a0who has lived\u00a0in Asia for\u00a013\u00a0years. \u201cThere is no fear, no problem talking to people.\u201d Soon, one\u2019s group of friends can stretch around the globe.<\/p>\n
Being part of this international community\u00a0also\u00a0can give expats access to\u00a0new\u00a0opportunities and ideas, and\u00a0can help them feel more confident, both\u00a0professionally\u00a0and personally.\u00a0Living temporarily planted can also soften fears of failure. Foreigners are\u00a0sometimes\u00a0granted unspoken permission to try things that might be discouraged in their home countries. The combination can lead expats to take more risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how sour or discontent your previous experience was, the expat life always offers another chance to make it all different,\u201d\u00a0says Ms. Blotskaya. \u201cYou can make amends with the mistakes you\u2019ve done or miscalculations and start anew.\u201d<\/p>\n
The more challenges\u00a0many\u00a0expats overcome, the more they enjoy the adrenaline of feeling themselves grow. After awhile, this becomes the new normal and makes life \u201cback home\u201d seem boring in comparison.<\/p>\n
Which is why so many expats \u2013 regardless of financial or social standing \u2013 resist giving up the lifestyle. Abroad, they feel free, independent, adventurous, curious, valued for their skills and self-aware. \u201cAs an expat, I have the ability to live in a foreign country and just be left alone to do,\u201d says\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Middagh.<\/p>\n
In other words, a distilled sense of oneself in relationship to the world is the real expat \u201cdrug.\u201d\u00a0But this isn\u2019t toxic, most expats argue. It\u2019s a fantastic way of experiencing life.<\/p>\n
Long\u00a0before glitz and glamour\u00a0came to accompany\u00a0corporate packages, Ernest Hemingway\u00a0likened\u00a0expats\u00a0to\u00a0addicts.<\/p>\n
Source:http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/expat\/2015\/06\/21\/what-makes-the-expat-lifestyle-so-addictive\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long\u00a0before glitz and glamour\u00a0came to accompany\u00a0corporate packages, Ernest Hemingway\u00a0likened\u00a0expats\u00a0to\u00a0addicts: \u201cYou\u2019ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8033,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029\/revisions\/8033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}