If you take a year or two off, get a government loan with interest starting immediately and payments when you graduate, there may be opportunity waiting. Then again, all that may be waiting are loan payments and no jobs. Almost everyone will say “You did the right thing, too bad, not your fault.”
Instead, take six months or a year and travel to a new country. You can finance it by starting small businesses or odd temporary jobs. Live inexpensively. If you return you will be more valuable to an employer. You can still get that school loan leash. If however you find a new home you just might prosper. Almost everyone will say you are crazy, at least at first. “This country (whichever one you are from) is the best country on earth, be realistic.”
Which direction is your birth country, not selected by you, headed? Is the stick being used in inappropriate ways (ouch that hurts)? Some countries are improving and learning how to grow carrots (organically). I prefer carrots to sticks. There are countries where you and your skills are are in demand. Go find them.
You don’t have to be young, or single, or without kids.
These countries will not be like where you were born, you will have to adjust to fit in with their culture. The rewards can be huge. One big reward is that you will be living. Not to gainsay the joys of a college party life, but if it is a last hurrah before a life of drab, indentured slavery; perhaps it would be better to party elsewhere.
The world is full of drab lives, staying where you are will just add your essence to the pallid, predictable pile. Instead you can be living, learning, and contributing. Every country you visit will add to your repertoire. Once you see behind the curtains of popular perceptions; your awareness of options will increase. You may find a new home, or several new homes, that fit you better than where you left.
There are beautiful beach towns where you can rent a decent apartment in a good neighborhood for less than a car payment. River towns, mountain villages, capitol cities can all be visited for less than you are spending on frustrating sameness today. There is another advantage.
Acquire residency, open a local bank account, develop relationships with new friends. If in homesickness you decide to return home, you will have another exit from the nest should future events turn hostile. Even ants have many exits from their nests. Ants are not only more industrious than most humans, in this case they are also wiser. Once you return to your first country you may feel relieved and secure — for a while. You will travel again, seeking elusive factors of belonging in various ports. The more you experience the greater the rewards of where you settle before flying off again.
The feeling of being comfortable with yourself, wherever you are, will grow. This is a feeling people wed to their lonely security blanket, placed in their crib by others, will never discover. You may at times be lonely or frustrated, but those two terms will not define your life. You will know how and where to adapt.
As Zig Ziglar said in another context, “You won’t pay the price, you will enjoy the price.”
Click on and read our free articles. Schedule a couple of weeks, in a few months, in a dorm at a youth hostel somewhere off the tourist track. Enjoy the culture, eat the food, avoid tourist traps. Attend a local expat meeting, but don’t hide with expats. If this country is at least 50% of where you might want to live, come back again after checking other countries. Remember, you don’t have to be young, or single, or without kids.
Regardless of your circumstances you will be expanding your life as soon as your feet walk on unfamiliar ground. Keep walking. That’s better than a job interview to see if you can qualify for a professional life sentence cubical.
You can be a master of nations, rather than letting a single nation be your master.
Bill Freeman