Nope, Leaving The Philippines Won’t Solve Your Problems
Fuck this country. Let’s move to [insert country here]!
People like to throw out this phrase whenever something shitty happens. I used to think moving out of the Philippines would be the miracle elixir I needed to cure my existential crisis.
Nope.
No matter where you go, there will always be something to nitpick about a country. New Zealand, even after being labelled as the “world’s best place to live”, still has some major flaws. It’s booooooooring (my Kiwi mum calls it a retirement village). It’s expensive. And, it’s isolated. Not to mention the serious case of depression people have down here.
Complaining about the typical 2–3 hour morning drive along EDSA? Well, switch that up with cooking and preparing your food every single day, cleaning the kitchenware, bedroom, and toilets yourself, starting out with an unstable visa, and no SMs or Trinomas to get all the shit you need in one trip. Plus, try and swallow the 40,000PHP — 55,000PHP monthly expense you’ll typically start out with and paying that on a regular basis regardless of whether you have a job or not.
Well, speaking of jobs, as long as I’m in IT, getting a job should be easy, right?
Nope.
I met up with a friend that I studied with a couple of months ago. He said that from the 30 that were in his IT class, only two had IT-related jobs. Everyone else either left due to visa constraints or have been skipping through odd jobs to make ends meet.
Sure, the pay is higher. But, getting a real job is another story.
Well, New Zealand is pretty cool, right? I mean, you got sheep, cows, and awesome hikes. And, don’t forget about Hobbiton!
Well, if that’s what you’re after, just visit as a tourist and don’t bother living here. And nope, Hobbiton isn’t that great. It’s a tourist trap — the entire tour takes 30 minutes, everyone has to follow a linear path because of how crowded it is all the time, and everything is expensive as shit.
Well, how about the cool people I could potentially meet and be friends with? I mean, their accents already make them at least three times better than the people over here, right?
It depends on whether the country you’re going to has a culture that’s similar to what you’re used to. For example, New Zealand has a huge drinking culture which is an important part to how most people connect and get to know one another. This won’t be a problem if you’re an extrovert who’s naturally gifted at making small talk inside bars. Otherwise, navigating through cultural barriers and connecting with people without something you can use to break the ice isn’t exactly an easy thing to do.
How about the widespread corruption in the Philippine government? And, don’t forget about the alarming amount of drug-related killings that has happened since Duterte got elected!
I admit, I’m one of the lucky ones who can afford to live in a bubble back home. If I didn’t leave, I’d probably still do my usual routine of waking up, going to work, going back home, staying at home, and sleeping. I tend to keep to myself and would rather worry about problems that I know I can solve.
If you want to fight the good fight and save the country, go right ahead. Personally, I accepted this shitty side of the Philippines a long time ago. If things change for the better, I’ll gladly celebrate it with you. If it doesn’t, I won’t throw a hissy fit over it.
I’m past the point of frustration and would rather concern myself with other things that are within my control.
Doubting if you’re going to meet the love of your life in shitty ol’ Manila? Well, don’t get too excited, because people feel the same way down here in boring ol’ New Zealand.
The point is, if you’re a boring introvert in Manila, you’ll also be a boring introvert in Paris, Germany, Singapore, or wherever you plan on going. It’s not the country you live in that needs to change — it’s you.
Migrating to another country won’t make your problems magically disappear. It just replaces those problems with new ones. And sometimes, those problems end up being worse than what you had before.
If you have big plans about migrating somewhere this coming 2017, I strongly urge you to re-evaluate and check if you really know what you are getting yourself into. Moving to a different country is no joke, so you better make sure that you prepare yourself for the financial and emotional capital you will need to invest to make things work.
