Lots of my close friends and former colleagues, once I decided to move abroad, asked me the same question: “should I move?“.
I know a lot of people that spend their whole lives in the very same place they were born. I’m talking not only about old ones, but surprisingly about young fellows, too. It may sound a little bit strange, but even with all the possibilities that we have today to get information and move freely (note: I moved during the pandemic period), a lot of young people can’t imagine a life outside their Country’s borders. I mean: some people never taste something different in their life, but if you think your diet is unhealthy, you don’t like some food or simply you want to taste a new exotic or traditional culinary specialty, why don’t give yourself a try?
Usually, a human being acts pushed by two possible levers: unless you really like pain, you are attracted toward the things you like (so basically driven by your desires) and, at the same time, you want to escape from things you don’t like. Hence, the simple answer to your doubts about leaving or not: write down what you like and what you don’t, before asking.
Issues with “Quality of Life” indexes
Since everyone has a different combination of tastes, you can’t just go to someone and ask “what’s the best country?”, exactly like you can’t rely on music charts and buy the last Justin Bieber’s album if you only listen to Beethoven and Iron Maiden. If billion people listen to Lady Gaga, but you prefer to listen to Amon Düül II, you don’t have to follow the crowds!
According to Numbeo, the first country on the 2021 list is Switzerland. But what if you want to walk on the seashore every morning and you hate temperatures going under 0°C? Moreover, some countries are so wide and so heterogeneous that it doesn’t make too much sense to say “I’ll live in Canada”, as if living in Toronto and Banff could be more or less the same.
So the simple logical solution (aside from every fancy buzzword and technique of leadership, management, and critical thinking) is a spartan, practical table. It doesn’t matter if an old-fashioned pen and paper or a modern spreadsheet, just do it now.
Identify what you like (and what you don’t)
γνῶθι σεαυτόν (if you don’t live in the Temple of Apollo, I’ll translate: Know thyself). At this point of your life, unless you are now celebrating your 6th birthday, you may have an idea of what you like and dislike; but just in case, here are some ideas, a quick list to getting started:
- are you a people person, attending every Burning Man and Kumbh Mela or you’d rather enjoy the silence in a Finnish forest?
- mountain climbing or relaxing on the Caribbean coast?
- share the ice with penguins or take the sunbath on the Death Valley?
- do you want to sleep peacefully with the door open in an Icelandic house or do you love the thrill of being kidnapped by Somali pirates?
- craving for money or you just need a roof and two meals per day?
- willing to do any job for a living or wish to keep doing exactly the same work?
If you’re not able to answer these simple questions, take your time to walk and meditate, then ask yourself in a mindful way what you like in this world.
Give a weight to your items
Let’s say that, for you, swallowing a sandwich or spending two hours in a fine gourmet restaurant doesn’t make any difference, but you do care about air pollution: you can understand that not all the items previously identified will impact your life and well-being the same way. So, next to each item, write a “weight”; let’s say, for example, a number from 1 (absolutely not important) to 10 (essential).
Identify some places that inspire you and let’s build this matrix!
You have your qualities to evaluate, the personal importance (weight) for them, a candidate list of countries, so you now have all the ingredients for the table. The receipt is easy: put every country in a different column and then just write a number from 1 (I don’t like how that attribute is present in that country) to 10 (I’ll love that attribute there!). It’s important to formulate this feature in a positive way to avoid confusion (for example, instead of “pollution”, let’s write “air quality”, so you’ll know that 10 for air quality is better than 1).
In the end, just make this simple calculus: sum of (country-based feature value multiplied by its weight). Here’s an example:
If it’s still unclear, this is how 39 comes from: 2×10 + 1×1 + 1×6 + 1×6 + 1×6 = 39.
As you can see, in this example, Cagliostro is the winner, with 209 points, followed by Tomainia.
The longer your list and more accurate your values, the better this table will assist you for your final decision. How do know the values?
- Travel the world (when possible). As a curious explorer, not as a tourist lying on a resort! Try to discover real hidden places, interact to know people and what they think, how they live.
- Read information from several different quality sources.
- Ask people (who you trust) that may have spent some time there.
Are you there today to stay or should you move? Where do you want to live? Sky (Earth …for the moment) is the limit! Remember: we are not like trees, we are not condemned to stay forever in the place we are born.
