Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Canada, China, Colleagues, Context, Culture, Empathy, Friendship, Happiness, Jill, Otis, Paul, Relationships, Relevance, Respect, Travel
I’ve written a lot over the years about the gift of living overseas.
I’ve talked about how I totally understand why people worry about what they’ll miss … but they should also think about what they’ll gain.
I’ve highlighted how I owe everything in my life – bar my relationship with Paul – to me living and working overseas.
Everything.
My wife.
My son.
My cat.
My career.
My whole life.
I don’t say that lightly … and I don’t ignore the fact I’ve also faced things I’ve missed and miss … but overall, it’s an amazing gift the World has given me.
Recently I was given another reminder of how wonderful it is.
I was in Edmonton, in Northern Canada.
It’s the most northern city in the World with a population of 1 million.
I’d never been there before. I’d never even heard of it before. But there I was … in a wonderful restaurant called Ridge Rd, with some clients … when I received this:
It’s a message from someone I knew in China. Someone I last spoke to probably 10+ years ago. But here I was, in a city I’d never been to – far from pretty much every other city I’d been – having an old friend say they were there too. I can’t tell you how lovely that was. How wonderful that an isolated city had brought me closer to someone from my past.
Now you may think that’s kinda-crazy, and I guess it is … but it’s happened before.
It happened when I took my Mum to the North Pole to see the Northern Lights.
It happened when I was in a small town in Brazil.
It happened when I was in Russia.
It happened when I was in Finland.
It has happened a lot because I’ve lived in a lot of countries … and every single time, it’s made me feel incredibly fortunate for the experiences, places and people it has brought into my life.
I get it’s a privilege and I don’t take that for granted.
But that privilege is far more than simply being able to live in different countries or earn different amounts of money – if you’re lucky. It’s about the ability to connect to different people, cultures and contexts. Their backgrounds, their viewpoints, their ambitions, their fears, their issues, their opportunities, their hopes, their references, their perspectives … that’s what the privilege is really about.
It makes you a bigger and better person for it.
Not just in terms of your own knowledge, but your own place in the world.
Which is why, when I got that random SMS from someone I knew in China while sat in a small restaurant in a small city in Northern Canada, I was so happy. Because that could only happen because I said ‘yes’ to opportunities when arguably, it would have been easier to say no.
I get it’s hard. I get not everyone has that chance.
But if you do, grab it. Because nothing lets you feel you’re living life than hearing from people you would have otherwise never met in places you never imagined you would ever go.