Moving to a New Country Is Easier Than You Might Think

Your tips keep me going, thanks in advance!I wasn’t fully aware of what compelled me to get on a plane and move to Peru in 2001. George W. Bush was president and I perceived everything he said to be cruel, ignorant, and inaccurate. I got sick of listening to him, so it was a relief to go and live in a country where I didn’t know the language.That was a factor in my desire to get out, but I acted on instinct rather than reason.You don’t recognize the extent of the daily intrusions upon your wellbeing until you experience a radical change of scenery. When I arrived in Lima, it was a joy to simply walk the streets and not understand anything I looked at.In your home country, you recoil on instinct at the first intonation that signifies an advertisement. This is reflexive, and you do it without awareness. The problem is, compartments in your brain are constantly slamming down to protect you, and you experience less of the world.In a foreign nation where you don’t know the language or the customs, and you have no context for the advertisements, you only perceive delightful sounds and colors.Yes, I was terrified a lot of the time. I didn’t know if I would turn a corner and be in the worst neighborhood in the city. But it was the delighted terror of excitement. My mind was working overtime processing information, and every night when my head hit the pillow I fell into deep and untroubled sleep.I didn’t know it back then, but it was the normalization of white supremacy in the United States that had been weighing on my psyche. Our country is riddled with it. It’s so fused with all of our traditions that it’s difficult to distinguish what is white supremacy and what is the country we’re supposed to have pride in.There is a lot of talk about “freedom,” but America is the land of exploitation, authoritarianism, and oppression. If you’ve never lived elsewhere, you don’t have the context to correct me.To make matters worse, if you mention these concerns, you’re demonized and punished. You might even be physically attacked. We’re not allowed to talk about our problems. Like any dysfunctional family, that’s the American way.I stayed in Peru for 9 years and then I made the mistake of thinking our country had turned a corner by electing Obama. Remember how peaceful it was under his presidency? Remember how the economy steadily grew? It did. For some reason the general public and the media refuses to recognize how well the nation does under Democratic presidents, and how the economy collapses under Republican incompetence, but that’s the reality. That’s a fact.What prompted me to return to the US was a combination of ignorance (mine) and hopefulness. I got married in 2009 and I wanted my wife to get her US passport because the document would afford us some ease of travel.So, I took her to the land where immigrants are demonized and nobody, not even church leaders, have the courage to stand up and say, “Let’s not throw such hatred at other human beings.”I’ve been thinking more and more about leaving once again and I know I’m not the only person giving a lot of thought to this idea. The United States has had every opportunity to become a great nation, and it has failed at every turn.This country is not now nor has it ever been “great.” To say otherwise is to disrespect the abuses endured by enslaved human beings and their descendants.It’s revealing that many of the people who deny the evils of racism in the United States are also holocaust deniers.Rational people are watching the trials of insurrectionist politicians with great interest. I have to confess, I watch these proceedings with sadness. I want them to be held accountable for their crimes, but I take no joy in any of this. It’s disgusting.We’re at the point in our relationship with liars that we’re too weary to seek retribution. We just want them to go away.No, you’re not the grand figure you’ve always claimed to be.No, you’re not “great” at what you do.No, everything has not been perfect.No, you can no longer sit there and scowl at me and tell me what a disappointment I am because now I see the truth, and the truth is you’re the one who has been a failure this whole time. Not me, YOU!I see insurrectionist politicians on trial, and they appear as human manifestations of the United States. That’s this country. That’s who we are.When I lived in Peru, I had a friend, Tobias, who was from Germany. He was in his 20s, and he told me a lot of things about his life growing up. His father had grown up as a prisoner in a Russian camp during WWII. Tobias’s father still spoke better Russian than German.Tobias told me about his grandfather who spent the last years of his life sadly burning documents. That was Tobias’s memory of him. The grandfather sat wrapped in a tattered blanket next to a barrel fire muttering angrily to himself and burning all the evidence of his life.“It was sad,” Tobias said, “all of the things that he had been promised were lies, but even at the end he couldn’t let them go. He was overcome with resentment and he didn’t know who to hold accountable. So he just sat there, burning papers, and being miserable.”There should be more coverage of the end result of hatred. Instead, we get the rage and bluster of the liar caught with his toe in a trap and we cower in reverence as we fail to understand what’s really happening.You can guess the right wing affiliations of Tobias’s grandfather. I’m fearful for all young people who grow up in a society where madness is normalized. I’m fearful for my own children and ashamed of the tattered remains of the planet they’re likely to inherit.When I moved to Peru in my 20s, it was easy. I didn’t own anything. I was free. I had not succumbed to the pressures to buy things.All you need in life is a backpack and seven pairs of underwear. With that, you can go anywhere. You can see things. You can climb mountains and breathe air and go to places that are free of the taint of toxic white supremacy.You know, like here:You can go places where the general population reveres education and intelligence.You can go places where you’re appreciated and loved.You can go places where nobody tries to make you take the blame for the problems they created.In Peru, I met a man who had been in the country on a tourist visa for 32 years. That made me laugh. Nobody called him out on it, and the country seemed indifferent so long as he didn’t cause problems.You can slip through the cracks between governments.Thinking back on it, he probably had some means of generating income in the US, so his state of being a perpetual tourist allowed him to interpret gray areas in the tax code to his benefit. I’m certain he took the expat designation as far as the US was concerned, but as far as Peru was concerned he was a “tourist.” Therefore, he basically didn’t have to pay taxes.I’m not recommending you do this.I suppose it was fun and exciting for the perpetual tourist when he was 30. As you get older, and the consequences of your foolish youthful decisions grow nearer, the humor starts to wane. Avoiding getting stuck in some zero-sum loop was one of the reasons I returned to the US.It can seem insurmountable to relocate, so don’t start your thinking with such an extreme objective. Instead, go for a week. Go for a month. Learn the language. Learn the culture.Download language programs to your phone and listen to them. Do you really need to hear that same asinine song from that irritating pop star for the hundred billionth time?If there are places in the world where you have family, go and visit them. That’s a huge advantage, but even without that advantage, you can make a relocation happen.One thing to remember is that no matter where you go in the world, the cost of living is almost guaranteed to be less. We don’t talk enough about how predatory the healthcare system is in the United States. It’s a simple fact that if you want to leave the benefits of a lifetime of labor to your children, you HAVE TO LEAVE THE UNITED STATES.The United States is designed to STEAL THAT FROM YOU! This is nothing new, this is how billionaires are made. They exploit people who work.Our system is designed to be a giant trap. It is content to provide you with the illusion that you can work hard and achieve, but that’s a lie. When you get old and sick, which is a guarantee, everything you ever worked for is taken from you.For that reason alone, you HAVE to establish yourself in a foreign country simply to have access to affordable healthcare. The US isn’t encouraging us to leave, it’s kicking us out the door.If you’re near retirement age and you have assets and tax considerations, it can feel insurmountable to relocate. However, that apparent obstacle is an illusion. You’re actually in a better situation, it’s just getting over the initial hump.All you have to do is write down what you want to do and talk with an accountant. The accountant will come up with a plan. It might cost you a couple hundred dollars to pay for the accountant’s time, but that’s much cheaper than losing the sum value of everything you’ve worked for your entire life to obscenely inflated medical expenses.There are lawyers who can help you with transitions to foreign nations. This is a growing business. These countries want us! This can be done. You can go. They will embrace you and treat you better than you ever imagined was possible. They’ll certainly treat you better than you were ever treated in the United States.Wouldn’t you rather go and hang out here:I think about all of this a lot. Yesterday, I walked through my house and reflected on how I’ve remodeled every room. I’ve been on my hands and knees sanding the floors. I’ve put tile up in the bathrooms, entryways, and back splashes. I’ve built shelves. I’ve watched my children grow in this house. It’s so full of memories.It will be hard to leave.But, my life is not the past, my life is the future. Wherever my wife and kids go, that is my home. I’d prefer to live somewhere I’m allowed to age with dignity. I’d prefer to give my children the benefit of assets that will allow them to live a deliberate life, rather than a life of desperate servitude.I can’t have that if I stay in the United States.The United States squeezes you until every drop has been extracted and then it tosses the broken remnants into the garbage. The ones doing the squeezing think they’re exempt, but the truth is they’re the type of people who spend their last days burning all the evidence of their life in a rusty barrel.Ask what your country can do for you.If your country refuses to do anything, then why should you make the ultimate sacrifice for it? That’s not noble. That’s just stupid.If you look around the table and you can’t tell who the sucker is, then it’s you. Now you know.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. 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