A few days ago I was walking home from lunch with one of my American friends and she said, seriously, "I don't think you and I could ever live anywhere but India, after this."
I recently read that famous article in the New York Times about second-generation Americans who are leaving America to pursue opportunity in the lands of their "ancestors."
Even my most reluctant American friends - the ones who complained incessantly while they were here - later cop to missing this country a lot. I had dinner in DC with one returnee who told me, mournfully, that while the US was awesome in the beginning, she still has trouble adjusting to her new-old life.
Of course, she told me this over handmade noodles at this garish place in Chinatown that I'd been looking forward to all week. One of the dubious joys of being an immigrant anywhere is that if it goes really, really well, you find yourself in a strange position: no matter where you are or how awesome your life is, there will always be something you will miss. Nobody warned me about that.
Another one of my friends, who has traveled to at least 20 different countries and lived in at least half that many, still thinks of Delhi - years afterward! - as her base.
Moving to India has helped me realize several things that have probably been healthy. 1) It's actually not about India at all. I put down the transformations in the past three years of my life to "India" but I realize that who we are is always - to sound cheesy - within us, we just choose whether or how to become that.
2) My college advisor was right. I walked into his office when I was 18 with a chart for the next ten years of my life. He looked at it and at me, smiled, and said kindly, "Anika, get rid of this." Here's what I've learned: no matter what you plan, your actual life will not resemble it. I never in my wildest dreams envisioned my current life; and yet there's nothing about it that feels unnatural or weird to me now. I'm not saying "don't plan" - I'm just saying that once in a while, you gotta throw that plan out or you will never surprise yourself with what you are capable of doing. The biggest danger in life is being one of those people who succeeds at everything he or she plans, because then you lose the ability to surprise yourself.
(This prof was also the one who told me, when I called up to ask if I should take a seriously hard course in the graduate school, that it wasn't even a question whether I should go for it, regardness of how it might destroy my GPA - I can only hope that this turns out to be right as well.)
3) There is more than one thing that can make us happy. This is the most difficult and maybe most liberating realization of all. There is nothing about my life today that is objectively better than my life in the US. If anything, my life today is probably harder - I make (at least by global standards) less money, I struggle to get around, I have plenty of pretty major disapopintments. But I am about 8000x happier than I ever was before. It has made me realize that happiness really has nothing to do with A) your salary B) any individual relationship C) anything that I put on that life list when I was 18 and D) I actually don't know what it has to do with, but I think surprising yourself is a big part of it. As is not comparing your life to others. This was actually the main reason I left America, and it was a great, great reason.
That said, there are probably certain compatability factors for people who want to live in India and, generally, abroad:
1. You really, really want to do it. I have known a few people who moved to India because they felt like they had no opportunities in the US. It did not go well for them.
Actually, that's just about the only factor that I think predicts success with "living abroad" or with any big risk a person takes in life. In order to make something work - something remarkable - you have to really, really want it. Some people are attracted to the idea of expatriation. Others are not. That's a pretty fundamental divide right there.
And for the record, I don't believe that I won't be able to live anywhere else after this. If anything, the skills I've learned in India - how to relate to different types of people, how to make friends in a foreign environment and with people of all ages/backgrounds, how to create institutions that don't exist just because I want them, how to create the life I want from scratch - will be really useful wherever I live.
I recently read that famous article in the New York Times about second-generation Americans who are leaving America to pursue opportunity in the lands of their "ancestors."
Even my most reluctant American friends - the ones who complained incessantly while they were here - later cop to missing this country a lot. I had dinner in DC with one returnee who told me, mournfully, that while the US was awesome in the beginning, she still has trouble adjusting to her new-old life.
Of course, she told me this over handmade noodles at this garish place in Chinatown that I'd been looking forward to all week. One of the dubious joys of being an immigrant anywhere is that if it goes really, really well, you find yourself in a strange position: no matter where you are or how awesome your life is, there will always be something you will miss. Nobody warned me about that.
Another one of my friends, who has traveled to at least 20 different countries and lived in at least half that many, still thinks of Delhi - years afterward! - as her base.
Moving to India has helped me realize several things that have probably been healthy. 1) It's actually not about India at all. I put down the transformations in the past three years of my life to "India" but I realize that who we are is always - to sound cheesy - within us, we just choose whether or how to become that.
2) My college advisor was right. I walked into his office when I was 18 with a chart for the next ten years of my life. He looked at it and at me, smiled, and said kindly, "Anika, get rid of this." Here's what I've learned: no matter what you plan, your actual life will not resemble it. I never in my wildest dreams envisioned my current life; and yet there's nothing about it that feels unnatural or weird to me now. I'm not saying "don't plan" - I'm just saying that once in a while, you gotta throw that plan out or you will never surprise yourself with what you are capable of doing. The biggest danger in life is being one of those people who succeeds at everything he or she plans, because then you lose the ability to surprise yourself.
(This prof was also the one who told me, when I called up to ask if I should take a seriously hard course in the graduate school, that it wasn't even a question whether I should go for it, regardness of how it might destroy my GPA - I can only hope that this turns out to be right as well.)
3) There is more than one thing that can make us happy. This is the most difficult and maybe most liberating realization of all. There is nothing about my life today that is objectively better than my life in the US. If anything, my life today is probably harder - I make (at least by global standards) less money, I struggle to get around, I have plenty of pretty major disapopintments. But I am about 8000x happier than I ever was before. It has made me realize that happiness really has nothing to do with A) your salary B) any individual relationship C) anything that I put on that life list when I was 18 and D) I actually don't know what it has to do with, but I think surprising yourself is a big part of it. As is not comparing your life to others. This was actually the main reason I left America, and it was a great, great reason.
That said, there are probably certain compatability factors for people who want to live in India and, generally, abroad:
1. You really, really want to do it. I have known a few people who moved to India because they felt like they had no opportunities in the US. It did not go well for them.
Actually, that's just about the only factor that I think predicts success with "living abroad" or with any big risk a person takes in life. In order to make something work - something remarkable - you have to really, really want it. Some people are attracted to the idea of expatriation. Others are not. That's a pretty fundamental divide right there.
And for the record, I don't believe that I won't be able to live anywhere else after this. If anything, the skills I've learned in India - how to relate to different types of people, how to make friends in a foreign environment and with people of all ages/backgrounds, how to create institutions that don't exist just because I want them, how to create the life I want from scratch - will be really useful wherever I live.
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