From Home to Home
I have now been living in Japan for 3 years and a half and am now on my way back there from one month of Holidays in France.
Living abroad for an extended period is an incredible experience that makes anybody grow up as a person through daily confrontation with a different culture.
Living abroad can also be excruciating as some aspects of said other culture can be in direct contradiction with your native country’s culture.
Being back in my home country for a month has been great and allowed me to reconnect with my own culture while seeing how much I had evolved outside of it.
Living most of my alone life in English, I have come to an unsaid acknowledgement that self-improvement is connected to America and the “English culture”.
However, living in Japan, I have seen many of my expatriated friends going through as similar process of improvement. Being confronted to a different culture makes you reevaluate your life and standards, thus bringing you naturally to such a development.
Being back in France allowed me not only to observe how the same process within myself worked differently in my home country but also how my fellow Frenchies living in France, sometimes without realizing it, were going evolving in their own ways.
One of them even just recently changed jobs, got a salary decrease with less responsibilities but at the same time with a lot more holidays and a mission to help others. Such a change is already rare in general for someone just 30 years old, but it is even more so in France, especially for someone who went to a business school. Most people are trying to get a higher pay, bigger company, etc.
This change has allowed this friend to appreciate his life more and find the purpose he was looking for.
Having two homes allows you to see a variety of evolution, thus developing a larger range of ideas and opportunities.
It also provides you with the indescribable pleasure of knowing that people who care deeply for you are waiting, always hoping for the best for you and here to support you.
There isn’t such a strong moral today but I guess what I am trying to say is:
Live a great life knowing that there are people caring and helping you evolve.
Living abroad just allows you to have all the more people and opportunities for you.
I guess it’s about time I get on that plane now so let’s fly to the people waiting for me now.
