onethousandknives wrote: ↑January 9th, 2018, 10:58 pm
I've gotten less hate for wanting to live abroad, going abroad, and having a foreign girlfriend than I thought I would. I get lots of "That would be nice" and "man, here really sucks right now" etc kind of comments, which especially have ramped up since the Trump administration. Of course there's some clueless Boomers who give me all the old trites, but basically anyone younger is at least semi-open to the idea. To be fair, I usually don't bring up how bad Western women are, and try not to emphasize too much how bad USA is, I just say "I want to live in X country for ____ reason." Also, in my area of the US, it's basically renowned for being a place full of cold stuck up mentally ill people, and it is generally miserable to live unless you are a millionaire, and has more people leaving the state every year than people moving in. It's very easy to find discussion boards speaking about my state talking about how terrible and closed and cold the people are, and how they moved from other states and can't find friends, etc. On a state level it has all the problems spoken about here about USA to a very high extreme.
In my own real life talking to real people and not just on forums, etc, I ended up meeting some people who did actually become happier abroad, did live overseas, traveled overseas extensively, lived overseas, etc. So I get some real opinions that actually have some level of being informed compared to just Fox News watching Boomers.
I think with any sort of alternative lifestyle of any kind, you'll get some hate. But, as with anything, you have to let it roll off your shoulders and press on towards your goal. If you can't handle 'haters' then you won't accomplish anything at all in life. I think importantly, too, once you actually do it, you'll get a lot less haters, and a lot more awe from people. In my case, I was the first member of my family to go abroad at all. My father when he dropped me off at the airport told me "Man, you got balls of steel, if I were you, I'd be shitting my pants right now." And for a lot of people, it does simply come down to that.
I am certainly a boomer. First of all, the Happier Abroad thing is not something that Winston or anyone else really invented! LOL
Why do you think Europeans were leaving Europe to come to the "New World" 2 or 3 hundred years ago? Flash forward to more recent times, WWII certainly gave some of the boomers' fathers a real look at the world. Only problem was, people were shooting at you. Never-the-less, there was this shift in awareness of other places, even well before Air Travel was possible for most.
Remember, just who was being drafted and sent to SE Asia by the hundreds of thousands? Boomer young men. A great many of those got past the war and went home, never to venture forth again. After all, their experience in Vietnam was not exactly inspiring. However, a significant number saw past the war itself and saw SE Asia as it might be beyond the war. Some joined the peace corp bound for places around the world. Some were not looking for "Happiness abroad", they were not entirely self focused. A peace corp worked living in some dump is not exactly looking for what most here would call happiness abroad.
I would very much like to see young millennials engaged and eager to experience the rest of the world. While I am in the states I volunteer with a mentoring project and unfortunately, very few millennials express interest. When I try to capture their imagination with accounts of other places, their eyes glaze over and they seem to be counting the minutes till they can get back into the social media world. There is an exception to this- that is the young people who are involved with church related overseas projects. By far, most of the more experienced millennials are in this group.
I have been in and out of over 60 countries- most of the third world places and lived in 6. I have plenty to relate to others in terms of wanting to wet their appetites for adventure and alternatives in other places. Some listen intently. Very few want to imagine that they might do the same, unfortunately.
I may be having some success with the sailing program we have been putting together. We start with day sails and once they experience that, quite a few want to go further. Well, on the West Coast of the USA, one of the good places to sail is down to Mexico. It's a start. Our goal with mentoring young men is to have them experience sailing- cruising and if they really get into it, those that do will likely end up with some kind of usable small sailboat such as a cal 27. Its a start, so we find it encouraging. We want to "infect " them with the travel bug and they can take it where they may.