I recently went to France, and was filled with a renewed desire to live abroad, particularly in France. When I was there, I tentatively set myself a goal to live abroad before I’m 30. I’m not being very prescriptive about this – it could be for 2 months, or 2 years, and could be someplace as close as Toronto or as far as Taiwan. But since coming back, I alternate between feeling very confident about that goal, and feeling uncertain about it.
Hesitations about this
I have a lot of worries about moving to France, or just living abroad. Some of this is because I’m a generally anxious person who worries a lot. Some of these might be legitimate concerns. It’s hard to tell.
First, I have some worries about even writing about this publicly. I’m scared that a current or prospective employer might find this, and presume that I’m not sufficiently dedicated to my current role. Or that I’ll commit myself to a course of action without an ability to change it by hitting “Post” on a blog post. Or, I fear that committing to a goal raises the stakes of failure. If I tell my friends I want to move to France, and don’t follow through, it will tarnish my reputation.
Second, I’m scared that this might be a misguided desire or might end up being a mistake, for several reasons.
- social isolation: I value having close relationships with others. While, I feel more confident in my ability to meet people now than I did at 22, it still requires a lot of time and energy to make new friends, especially since I don’t know anyone in France. I’m fearful that that would degrade my quality of life or just make me really unhappy especially compared to the life I have now
- missing the homies, losing relationships, FOMO: Building on the previous point, I’m scared I would miss my friends, would further drift away from others, and would generally miss out on things – such as what my life or career here could evolve into, or time with friends/family.
- grass is greener : Part of the desire to do this is rooted in how good I felt while I was there (particularly at the Calanques in Marseille). But it’s possible that that feeling will go away, and I might get stuck with the feeling of “I’m here, now what”.
- running away: When I shared this desire with a friend who knows me well, they remarked that it seems like I might be running away from something, rather than running towards something constructively. That is, it seems like I’ve identified things I don’t like about my current situation, but haven’t articulated a specific set of reasons why I’m moving towards something else
Why I want to do this
At the same time, this feels like something that would be in line with who I am. Learning languages and being interested in the world outside my country has been something that feels like me, even if at times it feels like a silly or not practical pursuit. It’s something I have thought about doing, and have wanted to do, for many years.
Furthermore, I really did have an amazing time in France. My French was much better than I thought it was, and I felt like so much more of the country was unlocked for me. I spent the day hanging out with two French people from my hostel and went hiking and swimming with them, and it was honestly one of the most beautiful days in my entire life. I know that not everyday will be like that, but it feels like the odds of me having more days like that are way higher if I live in France than if I live in the United States.
I loved that I was able to take public transit everywhere and I heard from people who moved to France that the public services are much better there. I really loved Marseille and felt like I could live there, and Paris is Paris so it’s not hard to love it. I didn’t get to explore Lyon, but it looked like a cool place as well. I feel like I would regret not trying to pursue it, or at least explore it to see what would happen.
Why France?
Now that I’ve discussed reasons why I’m concerned about a move like this, it’s useful to talk about why I’m excited about this. Here are a few of the reasons I feel drawn towards France:
- France is a highly developed country. Some say it’s the second best large country in the world, and seems to be “crushing it” in many ways
- Of the countries that speak a language (other than English) that I speak (Spanish and French), France is the most developed (with maybe the exception of Switzerland).
- I speak French, which should aid my ability to meet people and function in French society
- France’s nationality law and culture is based on assimilation – anyone can become French by assimilating to French values. Contrast that to a place like Germany, where for many years you could only become German by having German ancestry
- However, France does have issues with Islamophobia, xenophobia and racism, especially to immigrants from former French colonies. The anti-immigrant far-right in France is also growing
- France has a large (for Europe) immigrant population, which makes me feel at home
- France is also a diverse country in terms of landscape and culture. You have the beach, the mountains, forests, islands that offer different things. I feel like there’s so much to explore
- France has great high speed rail, public transit, urbanist friendly cities, and what appear to be better public services when compared to the United States
- France is located in Europe, which gives it easy access to many other countries. It’s also only a 6-8 hour flight to the Eastern US, which should allow me to visit semi-regularly
- I enjoy French TV and movies, and had a really good time hanging out with French people while I was in France.
Now what?
I realized that in writing this post that this really is a hypothetical – I’m not in a position to move to France until I find a job there or gain admission to a school there. So I feel like the next steps are to look into that, and work on my French.
But more broadly, this exercise (especially the call out from my friend), has helped me realize that I probably need to think about what matters to me, my beliefs, my values, and explore who I am to really figure out how to answer these kinds of big questions.