How living overseas helps you to be your yourself. Your real self.
We are all a product of the environment that we are exposed to every day.
Yes, you are hearing me right. You may think that you are a product of the choices you yourself have made in life. But that is true only to some extent.
The environment that we are exposed to every single day makes up to a large degree who we become. Just think about the famous quote — that we are a result of the five people we spend most time with.
That quote is really describing the truth. Human beings are products of culture.
No person today would have been able to achieve what they did if they had lived in isolation.
What if Albert Einstein had grown up in a desert?
Just imagine for a second that Albert Einstein had grown up in a desert: would he have been the one to come up with the theory of relativity under those circumstances?
In my opinion, that’s very unlikely. He probably would have been busy trying to figure out how to survive under those circumstances.
Of course, we also have genetic predispositions who we are ought to become. And, of course, we can also choose how to respond to the different situations that we are being exposed to.
But in the end, the different stimuli that we are exposed to in the first place are a result of the environment that we grew up in. Therefore, it is the selection of these stimuli that determine how we develop.
Living overseas allows you to make a conscious choice about who you want to become.
When we are living in our own cultural environment for our whole life, it has been determined by some external factors which values, beliefs and behavioral patterns we are being exposed to on a daily basis.
The time that we first move overseas, all these values, beliefs and behavioral patterns are being brought into question.
It it the moment that we are exposed to completely new types of behaviors that we start to question the beliefs and values that we grew up with.
Quickly, we start to realize that there are actually completely different perspectives of looking at the world, and that every culture has its own unique way of looking at the word.
What this does is that it allows us to make a choice. We have to ask ourselves which values and beliefs are more in line with who we really are.
By comparing the belief system of the host culture with that of our culture of origin we can think and reflect which of these values and beliefs are closer to our heart.
In every situation that we face, it gives us the ability to choose between one of the two modes of thinking and behaving, or even to come up with our own third way.
The more perspectives we internalize, the more we will learn about ourselves.
Every exposure to a new behavior evokes strong emotions within ourselves.
It makes us question our own way of thinking and behaving. It makes us think about how we feel about this new behavior or belief. It makes us reflect on whether this behavior or belief is something that we ourselves want to adapt. It makes us think about who we really are.
Living overseas constantly forces us to learn and grow by confronting us with completely new ways of looking at the world and forcing us to review our own perspective in relationship to these worldviews.
I want to end this article by asking a few questions from you:
- How has the environment you grew up in shaped who you are today?
- What kind of environment do you believe would be conducive to who you want to become?
- What perspectives have you been exposed to throughout your lifetime that have the potential to change the way you think dramatically?
Let me know your thoughts on these questions in the comments below!
