The perks of living in a foreign country

Every place has a different vibe associated with it. Its as if like that vibe is not available anywhere else in the world. Moving from my home state Gujarat to a city in Haryana, Gurugram for work, the culture changed. Back in my state, alcoholic drinks were banned for human consumption. Here, the party culture was pre-eminent. People of Gurugram used to consume a lot of alcohol in parties on weekends and public holidays. Every Saturday night held a special place in the heart of a person staying in Gurugram. In essence, the night life of the city was something to adore even for a person who didn’t drink or smoke. I embraced this culture and enjoyed my limited stay there.

Personally, the struggles associated with living a nuclear life had always daunted me. When I was 18, I left my home for the first time to study and obtain a bachelor's degree. I was about to stay at a hostel with a bunch of unknown people. I remember that when my family came to drop me to the hostel, I cried. It was an emotional outburst that I had never experienced before. I didn’t know how life would be like as I had never encountered anything like this before. Thankfully, I found a group of friends in the company of whom my time at the hostel became worthwhile. However, I always craved my home. In the last few months of my college, I was so frustrated that I was determined to find a job in my home city. As a result, I purposefully didn’t give my 100% effort in many of the companies that came to my campus for hiring.

As luck had it, a solar PV manufacturing company based in Surat was going to visit a nearby college. It meant that my competition was going to increase several times. This was the time when I wanted to give my everything to get selected. Thankfully, after several rounds of interviews and interactions with stakeholders of the organization, I was one of the few people who were able to make it. Surprisingly, it was the toughest competition I had faced till then based on the number of students who had applied. I realized I could achieve anything if I was determined and persistent.

Moving on, as destiny had it, I came to this beautiful country of Germany in the spring month of April. As the days were getting hotter and longer, I was settling in the gorgeous town of Stralsund. During the summer, I experienced closed to 20 hours of daylight which was ridiculous especially coming from a country closed to the Equator. This was one of the first cultural shocks I witnessed.

A couple of months later, during peak summertime, I decided to travel to a nearby city of Rostock to witness another big cultural shock. Never in my life, I had seen so many young and fully nude people. Obviously, I am not going to lie and say that I didn’t mean to see so many nude people. Anyways, this is one of the perks of living in a foreign country; you get to experience adventurous and outrageous lifestyles.

I am now in the 8^th month of living in this country. One of the best things about living in any foreign country is the amount of freedom you have as an individual. However, it doesn’t mean that you cannot have that freedom in India. Personally, I always thought that I was destined for greatness and for me to achieve greatness I had to get out of mediocrity.

Today, I can do so many things which I may not have been able to do if I had been in India. I believe I wouldn’t have had the same degree of financial freedom. I have been able to fulfil my newfound love for travelling after coming here. I have been able to achieve a better work life balance. I am calmer and more focused at my work. I can better concentrate in my studies. I have the time to occasionally adhere to writing articles and reading books. I am able to dedicate time to meeting my small group of friends on weekends and fortunately, also go on dates with women. Perhaps, my time utilization here has been optimum. It has led to better mood and overall better mental health. I may add here that I made a choice to add good habits to my routine and fortunately, I have enough time to pursue all these habits on a consistent basis.

However, all of this comes at the cost of staying away from my family and best friends. It comes as no surprise that the bigger the sacrifice, the greater is the reward. One fine day, I will get bored of this country and maybe will move back to India. But meanwhile, lets just enjoy wherever we are.