Do expats find happiness......?

One thing that you can be guaranteed of when you read any paper for a month, is that at least one day in that month there will be a day dedicated in the letters column where current South African residents and expats call each other names and have their little tiff in the paper on a public forum. It is normally expats either telling us how nice it is in their new adopted country or expats [and this is mostly true] telling us how bad SA is. The response from the residence is either a bunch who say they are longing to also leave or a number of people who get into a slinging match.

In one's life, all things around you are divided into two areas. In the one area you place all the items that are within your control and the second is the area of items you cannot control. If you can imagine the two as two circles, one will be bigger than the other - you decide which is bigger. Lets put colour to it. The things that you control is green and the things you cannot control red.

These two circles represent the balance in your life. In the green circle you find things like your work, your family, your car, your house, etc. In the red circle you will find the petrol price, food prices, exchange rates, etc. If your green circle is big, you will find that that individual is inherently happy as well. If the red circle gets to big, a person becomes unhappy.

The next question is why are there these differences in size between the circles. It is due to the law of attraction. Yes, you read correctly. Our life is controlled by one of the simple laws in nature. The law that says you attract things that are similar to yourself. Have you not found that in life? Just think what is the first question asked if you have a new friend. "Do you have anything in common?". It is a fact. When you only think of positive things, you will have a positive life and your life will be more under control. The green circle will be big. If you are only negatively inclined or go through a rough patch in life, the red circle becomes big and you must be careful that your life does not spiral out of control. The only way to address the red circle, is to concentrate on the things that you can control and get them properly under control.

Lets get back to our expats. The only reason someone will leave your country of origin is when they are unhappy. I am not talking about people who go for professional reasons, but people who emigrate because they do not like South Africa anymore. They are unhappy in this country and will give a number of reasons for it. It may vary from affirmative action to crime to education. They will always find a reason. The problem is that they are unhappy and their red circle is at breaking point. Now they pack up and leave to a new country.

Lets have a look at the reality in this adopted country. They now find themselves in a place, which is not their first choice, in a work which is forced upon them. Their kids go to school in [highly likely] a foreign language [all countries have different ways of doing things - even in English] and you live in a small crummy place in comparison to what you had in South Africa. You drive a crummy car and you have no friends. What a great life!

One thing you will notice in the paragraph above, is that all these items are things which should have been in your green circle. They should have all been well under your control, but moving to the foreign country has suddenly put them right out of your control. That means that your red circle, which was big before you left, has now even increased in size and there is very little in life you now have under control. What do you think does that do for their happiness? The expats - although they will not admit this easily - overall not very happy. They cannot be; the laws of nature can prove to you that they are not. That is why they keep reading SA papers and keep on trying to justify their move to another country. The fact they they constantly try and do it in our newspapers just proves the point about things being out of control. They keep on writing to newspapers to convince themselves that the move is right. Their lives are in turmoil and spiralling out of control and they will do anything eventually to try and get a grip on it. Even if it means packing up and returning to the place where you know how to control most things in your life.

I am not blaming any expat for moving. That is their own personal choice to do it and I respect that opinion. All I am asking is for them to leave us alone and to stop trying to convince us that their decision was right. Rather to try and find justification in SA for their move, they should rather spend their energy in their adopted country to try and move the direct environment around them back into their green circle and become a much more happy group of people.