Youssef Assad
Sep 9, 2018 · 3 min read

Dealing with cultural reverse shock is harder than you think.

My Egyptian Passport Frontal view difference in 4 years

There is a belief out there that one of the main disadvantages of travel that it erases your original identity and your beliefs and transform you into an alien in your own community where you been born.

Personally, I was criticized by many people including my own family the most that I’m no longer the same person they used to know, they keep criticizing that I have changed so much and sometimes they even say verbally that they wish I did not travel at all, leading to a sense of loneliness and detachment that was built over time, I will try to explain and more to explain coloration between changing and traveling.

I think human consciousness is evolving over time similar to a software application. In every new update development, the application functions get evolved or deleted to add new functions. As you travel, your consciousness will evolve at a rapid rate because you are absorbing a lot of information and testing yourself in a new environment. Naturally, you will find that you are changing incorrect beliefs from childhood and starting to add new beliefs extracted from of new experiences that you will acquire over time.

It is possible to argue about a point. Are you in a stage of change or development? I think that gradual change is part of the development process, but for those who do not notice this change over time, they will think that you just changed. However, all stages of changes must be viewed to create the correct image of the development.

In fact, the journey of development is painful and frustrating I remember when I was learning English. The effort to change my pronunciation of a word that I used to pronounce wrongly since childhood was harder than learning a new word it was shocking when I thought I was speaking correctly, but the opposite was a reality. Similarly, travel is full of traumas accompanied by a sense of sadness and despair when we realize the reality of our superficial thoughts, our deceptive hopes, and our simple morality. The nature of truth is to describe things as close to reality as possible.

The reverse culture shock is the trauma when a traveler tries to return to his or her original culture. The truth is that it is very difficult to try to re-adapt because, in the eyes of someone else you are different from how they used to communicate with you, you may decide to embrace a new religion such as Buddhism or becoming agnostic or change your diet to become a vegetarian or change your sexual orientation or to live in the mountains instead of cities or to marry a foreign woman or decide to live alone and adopt a child … Etc., mostly attempts to explain the reasons for a particular action will not succeed because of difference Levels and trends of consciousness.

“No one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no one understands anyone else”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The choice of isolation or emigration is the last step in this conflict. The first choice will make you feel that you are an alien living on a different planet. You might will try to create your own world and reduce interaction with people to relieve stress and stress maybe you will try to meet an open-minded people who have similar experiences which might simulate temporary a certain events from the past, The Latter is leaving to find a new home where you can express your thoughts freely and live in a way that reflects your personality and authentically .

Actually, I wish there is an ideal option but unfortunately, there is none, there is always a sacrifice sometimes you won’t able to live in the darkness for a long period after seeing the light and you sometimes you can’t run from your responsibilities towards your closest ones.

Youssef Assad
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