Compromise with LonerMatt

[LonerMatt]

Hey guys, as some of you know I was active a few years ago. I kind of slipped off the radar a bit and wasn't that interested in ERE for awhile.

Recently, I've become galvanised to re-organise and re-prioritise my life a bit. While overseas, I realise that I didn't really want to return home, and that I didn't really miss anything at home except my excellent speakers (music played on an appropriate system is just too good).

About me

Matt. 24. HS English teacher. Lives in rural Australia (Warrnambool for those playing). No debt, bitches.

I can't have everything I want, so I'm looking for ways to make my compromises better.

Aims

Ideally, I'd like to do one of two things:
- Work in Australia for another 4-5 years, become a slow traveling nomad
- Finish work in Australia this year, working overseas indefinitely

The advantages of the first option are that I would not have to work while traveling, and that when I decide to settle somewhere, I'd have a good amount of money to re-start domestic life with. On the other hand, to do this properly requires a sacrifice that I'm not sure I will be happy with (ie, 4-5 years of working and not living).

The second choice affords me travel and work (ie one directly funds the other), plus some savings (if I work in a location close to other countries traveling costs less due to massively reduced airfares), as well as experience something new and different. However, the pay is relatively lessened, so long term - I'd need to return to work.

I'd be really interested to hear from those who are working abroad and whether or not a change in scenery, culture and role changes how you feel about work.

February, the month that was

Spending: 1780
Income: 3812
Savings rate: 53%
Daily $ spent: $63.5

Savings rate too low, spending too high. I had a few expenses that should be unusual: a fine ($100), some new clothes ($220), magazines ($60).

Cash: $6990
Stocks: $20089
Bonds: $16000
Other: $6000
Net Worth: $49079

I was proud of myself for finally taking the plunge in investing a large chunk of money ($40k of my savings). No matter what I do, it is important that I invest well and learn to make my money work for me. I'd put this off for a few years because, really, I was making excuses and didn't want to commit.

Next month:

My income will increase slightly (to about $4k for the month), and I would like to save about 70% of that. April will be a more expensive month (I'm doing a road trip during my 2 week holidays, and though I'll sleep at friend's houses, or in my car, petrol isn't cheap).

I'm also researching a few possibilities for next year:
1) Working overseas as a teacher (probably Taiwan as I'm chasing a girl there) - this seems easy, I'm qualified, the pay is great for the country (more than great, luxurious even)
2) Working overseas with an NGO (I'm part of a fairly exclusive network of teachers worldwide through a program I did at University, which gives me some great contacts in poorer countries)

What I'm weighing up is whether it's worth it to accept lessened pay, savings and investment for a lifestyle that, perhaps, suits me more. I can, for example, work in Taiwan for 6-9 months, then go traveling in that area for 3-6 months. Indefinitely.

Or I can stay here, save 50% and go on holidays 4x a year. Indefinitely.

[jacob]

I'd be really interested to hear from those who are working abroad and whether or not a change in scenery, culture and role changes how you feel about work.

The feeling always seemed positive, but the duration of that feeling was directly proportional to how much I liked the work. If you don't like the work, no amount of moving around is going to cure it.

In term of changes, I'd list their impact on how the change feels in this order:
vocation, role, coworkers, scenery, culture.

[The Old Man]

Since you are a high school English teacher then I assume you like teaching. If that is the case and if you want to maximize your earnings then I would look into overseas jobs as a teacher for English as a Second Language (ESL). Japan and the Middle East would be your top destinations.

[LonerMatt]

I'd be really interested to hear from those who are working abroad and whether or not a change in scenery, culture and role changes how you feel about work.

The feeling always seemed positive, but the duration of that feeling was directly proportional to how much I liked the work. If you don't like the work, no amount of moving around is going to cure it.

In term of changes, I'd list their impact on how the change feels in this order:
vocation, role, coworkers, scenery, culture.

I agree with the first statement, but wonder if different locations alter the nature of the work (this is relatively true even within school districts, states and nationally, so I imagine internationally as well there is some variance). Obviously the elements that comprise any job will stay the same (ie, I'll still be talking with kids, helping them work, giving feedback, marking, etc), but perhaps with different weightings/foci in different places. Or perhaps not.

Since you are a high school English teacher then I assume you like teaching. If that is the case and if you want to maximize your earnings then I would look into overseas jobs as a teacher for English as a Second Language (ESL). Japan and the Middle East would be your top destinations.

Oddly enough Japan isn't a great recommendation for making cash. I earn more here (and would earn more if I wanted to teach in a remote area), and working in England (yay Commonwealth) would be a close 2nd best for earnings. Japan would be maybe 60-70% of my current pay. Maybe.

That being said, it'd be more money than, say, rural Nebraska, or Vietnam, or China.

[Dautsen]

For example: http://busyteacher.org/4791-top-5-count ... aries.html

I only have experience with China. If you're born in an English speaking country, have enough proof of experience and the right accreditation and certificates, there's big money to be made in Asia. A nice adventure it will be for sure

Most teaching jobs in China offer wage + bonus if you finish one year + housing + insurance + flight ticket + holiday. Wage can be extremely low 700 dollar/month or high (ahm have to google that. I know private tutoring is >300 rmb in big cities). It all depends on my first paragraph.

[LonerMatt]

I'm from Australia, have 3 years teaching experience (easy to prove) and 4-5 tutoring experience, I have a degree in English and another degree in English teaching (post-grad diploma) from a very reputable University.

Are those qualifications sufficient? I've been thinking about grabbing CELTA or TEFL, but honestly I know what they're covering, so it's all about grabbing the certification, which I'm not sure is necessary (since one would think 2 years of study about English teaching methods supercedes an introductory course!).

I definitely think I'd be more inclined to move to Asia to start with, then transition over to somewhere like Colombia, Ecuador, or Peru. Though international schools offer the best deal (they are also the most competitive).

[LonerMatt]

Ok - I thought I'd share an experience and see if anyone has any sage wisdom.

A lot of journals here discuss dissatisfaction with jobs, feelings of entrapment, impatience and disenfranchisement. I'm not immune to those feelings, but they also do not dominate my life much at all. All in all, I'm pretty happy.

I work at a job that's reasonable, and that I'm good (sometimes great) at, that pays fine, and that gives me a lot of opportunities to travel and relax and recharge. My life basically involves working (which I generally find satisfying and interesting, if not inspiring and cool), then spending time on my hobbies (cooking, walking, music, reading) and friends. I travel and buy most of what I really want and manage to save around 50% or so of my income.

In many ways I think pursuing ERE is worthy in of itself (the learning one does when reducing expenses and focusing on self-development is invaluable). But on the other hand, I can't really see much in my life that I dislike, loathe or want to escape from. I think I'm becoming interested in ERE again because I want to be prepared for the time if/when I want to escape.

Am I naive?

[mxlr650]

A lot of journals here discuss dissatisfaction with jobs, feelings of entrapment, impatience and disenfranchisement. I'm not immune to those feelings, but they also do not dominate my life much at all. All in all, I'm pretty happy.

I am not a sage, so this is not a wisdom – this is more of my own experience and observations.

// this post could be quite unpopular in the forum

I have hard time understanding unhappiness towards job -- it seems like people who are happy with their jobs never post about it, and as in most forums, people who complain are the ones taking all the bandwidth. I have had my share of friends and co-workers complaining about their jobs and here are few of my observations having worked for few big companies

Be practical – many people forget that they are hired to do a specific job function, and bigger the company, fewer people call the shots. If that is not acceptable, go find a start-up. Also, politics is inevitable (even parents have their favorites), and it behooves to know the pulse of the company thru connections rather than hiding behind an MBTI monicker and be unhappy with company workings. Start-ups are the worst as everyone is usually driving founder's agenda and you can rarely question

Accept hierarchy – if finding start-up is not in your plan, one has to accept the fact that manager is the master even though HR intranet is full of garbage like rewarding honest work etc. In most companies, HR is a slave to the business groups, so very rarely HR does things against the hierarchy. Besides, manager controls pay raises, bonuses, work assignment, and if you somehow think your manager is an idiot – think again, especially if he has been around for a while. So, not liking manager means, time to move on.

Work for a great company – higher bar for hiring essentially minimizes crappy people at workplace – will not make it a wonderland but make it tolerable

I have had good relationships with most of my managers, I have been rewarded with some good perks, even though I am stubborn and very opinionated, people realize I do not manipulate to drive my own agenda.

You are not naïve, and in fact you are happy at work may be because you intrinsically manage your sphere of concern vs sphere of influence very well.

[jacob]

@LonerMatt -

No, not naive.

There's a bunch of reasons for the negativity (which I think to a large extent has a sampling bias in this forum):

* Some would rather do something else with their life than work in a job. It may be that their work doesn't fit the job format. It may be that they simply don't want to work.

* Some, the burnouts, have worked really hard and put a lot of their life and soul into their work only to experience the equivalent of a crisis of faith. If they can't get out of that particular work (maybe they need the salary and have no other skills that bring an equivalent salary), then they are forced to put all their mental energy into something they've come to fundamentally disagree with.

* Some are simply overqualified or find that their work style fits poorly into 9-5. If they can fulfill all their work requirements in 45 minutes and yet need to be present from 9-5 due to regulations, this waste of life energy is demotivating.

It really depends on what kind of attitude one comes in with. Suppose the goal if a work day is to produce 45 minutes of work but that regulations and managers demand spending 8 hours on it.

If one person likes the water cooler talk, the 2 hour lunch break, the minimal sporadic effort, finds the work highly interesting... And the other person doesn't care for breaks and small talk, lives for efficiency, and finds the work completely uninteresting... These two persons will have a very different opinion of their job, because to the first person, work is nice daily activity with lots of diversions and almost zero stress that pays okay, while to the second it's like spending every day in solitary confinement doing boring things, etc.

[steveo73]

* Some would rather do something else with their life than work in a job. It may be that their work doesn't fit the job format. It may be that they simply don't want to work.

I think I simply don't want to work or better put I don't want to work in my current job which I do enjoy at times.

* Some are simply overqualified or find that their work style fits poorly into 9-5. If they can fulfill all their work requirements in 45 minutes and yet need to be present from 9-5 due to regulations, this waste of life energy is demotivating.

I can often do this however I often just walk out as well. The thing is that it doesn't look good and depending on who your manager is some can get away with leaving whereas others have to sit there and do nothing.

If one person likes the water cooler talk, the 2 hour lunch break, the minimal sporadic effort, finds the work highly interesting... And the other person doesn't care for breaks and small talk, lives for efficiency, and finds the work completely uninteresting... These two persons will have a very different opinion of their job, because to the first person, work is nice daily activity with lots of diversions and almost zero stress that pays okay, while to the second it's like spending every day in solitary confinement doing boring things, etc.

I go through this as well. I'll be busy this week however I think 50% of my time will be within unproductive areas that are basically a requirement for me to do my job but have nothing to do with actually delivering an IT project.

I also have to do stuff that adds no value at all to the projects but governance or regulations state we have to do it. For instance we do system testing which is basically pointless and involves documenting a whole bunch of stuff that is obvious into Excel. We also have designers who don't really design anything. Its more about everyone getting a piece of the pie.

[LonerMatt]

February update:

Spending: 2201
Income: 4120
Savings rate: 46%
Daily $ spent: $72

Savings rate too low, spending too high. I overspent on a few things, I had ordered something expensive that came in the mail, two trips to a big city with lots of food eaten. I'm, on one hand, a little bit surprised to see these numbers, I'm really quite unconscious with my spending. On the other, I had a great month and don't care a great deal. I think this is part of my love/loveless relationship with ERE/FI - I love the idea of being frugal and FI and polymath'd up to my eyeballs in radness. On the other hand, I enjoy a lot of things I don't really care to give up (eating out, buying food, clothes, etc).

Cash: $10598
Stocks: $19877
Bonds: $16118
Other: $6000
Net Worth: $52593

I was reflecting pretty heavily about a few things this month:
1) Jacob recently reposted the engineering triangle on his blog. I think this a something that clarified for me a few things. Firstly, I don't really mind (at the moment) waiting longer for FI because I'm not frustrated, annoyed or imprisoned. Since, as stated before, I don't mind my job, I'm pretty happy compromising my desire to work and do that, spend a bit and to save 4-5x the average. I, generally, try to spend on experiences, not things, but that's not a perfect metric.

In other words, I'm happy for good and cheap, without fast. This reminds me of a post I read ages ago, of Jacob's, where he basically said that, while understandable, most people focus on the money side of FI and not the skills. I think this is true and, at times, makes us more shallow then we need be.

2) I went with some friends to a very expensive clothing store. One of my friends knows the owner and people that worked there, so it was a pretty relaxed conversational few hours. They encouraged us all to try one everything, so I thought why not, how often to I get to try this stuff on. Like playing dress ups as a child, it's actually quite enjoyable. I don't know why. Anyway, at one point I had about $6k of clothes on me, which is a bit ludicrous, but it was a fairly informative experience.

I don't know what income level I'd need to have to justify purchasing some of those clothes, but I know that I really did want to. I suppose we each have our demons - some people love their cars, some people love their too big homes, some have children, I have clothes. I just really, really like cool clothes.

We're a pretty anti-material bunch here, but I wonder sometimes if in our tenacity we become zealous. ERE is about priorities, and I felt torn between my desire to save and my desire to own some of these clothes. I didn't spend, because it's easier to say 'I'll think about it', rather than suffer through regret, but it was a reflective moment.

3) I identified an area I'd like to try and transition into over the next 4-5 years: literacy expertise. This is potentially exciting and really cool, though it's early days with learning about how to transition and what it'd mean. Hypothetically, it could mean a greater demand for my skills and a lot more flexibility and pay. In the short term, it might mean working hard and not getting much recognition (but that's no big deal). I'm a big Cal Newport fan, and I think 'So Good They Can't Ignore You' is an amazing read, though potentially quite oppositional to ERE (not necessarily though).

This is still pretty formative, but it's something I'm excited about.

4) Partnering with some colleagues in India I'm going to India to volunteer later in the year. I like to travel, so this is a way to get introduced to something I feel overwhelmed by, and something that adds to my skill-list.

[jacob]

I'm a big Cal Newport fan, and I think 'So Good They Can't Ignore You' is an amazing read, though potentially quite oppositional to ERE (not necessarily though).

I don't think they're opposite. Rather, Newport focuses on specialization whereas ERE focuses on generalization. In either case being so good they can't ignore you or at least good enough to be noticed helps a lot.

The risk of the "so good they can't ignore you" is the "small fish in a big ocean"-problem. For instance, it is very hard to be "so good they can't ignore you" in college football. In his book he gives an example of becoming an expert on a hard-to-understand computer science paper and subsequently deriving a lot of success and connections from that. However, that wouldn't work in a field where expertise on such a paper is required rather than optional.

It gets easier, a lot easier, if you're a "big fish in a small ocean". Here the "so good they can't ignore you" can really shine because you're not competing with a horde of other people who are also very good. In that regard, ironically, a good life strategy may be to figure out exactly how good you are. Then aim a little bit lower.

PS: That wasn't a repost. That was a bona fide new post!

[Tyler9000]

Ok - I thought I'd share an experience and see if anyone has any sage wisdom.

A lot of journals here discuss dissatisfaction with jobs, feelings of entrapment, impatience and disenfranchisement. I'm not immune to those feelings, but they also do not dominate my life much at all. All in all, I'm pretty happy.

...

In many ways I think pursuing ERE is worthy in of itself (the learning one does when reducing expenses and focusing on self-development is invaluable). But on the other hand, I can't really see much in my life that I dislike, loathe or want to escape from. I think I'm becoming interested in ERE again because I want to be prepared for the time if/when I want to escape.

Am I naive?

I was in a very similar place to you for much of my career. I specifically remember telling a friend four years ago that I loved my job and felt like I knew exactly what I had been placed on this earth to do. One layoff and three employers later, the same career and life that I was perfectly content with then is now insufficient to sustain my happiness indefinitely. I certainly think I fall in Jacob's burnout category, but even beyond that is the simple reality that people change. I used to totally love designing cool new consumer electronics, and now the thought just no longer appeals to me at all. I'm just a different person now, and in retrospect I find the career-driven assumption that one will have the same motivations spanning 40+ years to be wholly dismissive of the true human experience.

So if you enjoy your job and your working life, that's wonderful. Enjoy the good times, and take the opportunity now to build an ERE system not necessarily to escape, but to have the freedom to shift gears as you grow older. Along those lines -- have you considered studying fashion and making your own clothes?

[LonerMatt]

I'm a big Cal Newport fan, and I think 'So Good They Can't Ignore You' is an amazing read, though potentially quite oppositional to ERE (not necessarily though).

I don't think they're opposite. Rather, Newport focuses on specialization whereas ERE focuses on generalization. In either case being so good they can't ignore you or at least good enough to be noticed helps a lot.

The risk of the "so good they can't ignore you" is the "small fish in a big ocean"-problem. For instance, it is very hard to be "so good they can't ignore you" in college football. In his book he gives an example of becoming an expert on a hard-to-understand computer science paper and subsequently deriving a lot of success and connections from that. However, that wouldn't work in a field where expertise on such a paper is required rather than optional.

It gets easier, a lot easier, if you're a "big fish in a small ocean". Here the "so good they can't ignore you" can really shine because you're not competing with a horde of other people who are also very good. In that regard, ironically, a good life strategy may be to figure out exactly how good you are. Then aim a little bit lower.

PS: That wasn't a repost. That was a bona fide new post!

I think there are a lot of good points here, but I also think that perhaps some of the context/environment necessary for Newport's advice could be contrarian to ERE. In other words, if you're wanting to become in demand and wanted, then you're focusing on your career capital (building rare and marketable skills) - for many on this board I get the impression that such skills (the marketable part is key) isn't really for them.

On the other hand, once one has those skills, it's definitely possible to demand flexibility and transition into the FI lifestyle that's desired.

From my perspective, if I were to take Newport's advice, it would only make sense if I was to work in my field for another 5+ years, otherwise the initial investment in time and energy are relatively pointless personally.

[LonerMatt]

Ok - I thought I'd share an experience and see if anyone has any sage wisdom.

A lot of journals here discuss dissatisfaction with jobs, feelings of entrapment, impatience and disenfranchisement. I'm not immune to those feelings, but they also do not dominate my life much at all. All in all, I'm pretty happy.

...

In many ways I think pursuing ERE is worthy in of itself (the learning one does when reducing expenses and focusing on self-development is invaluable). But on the other hand, I can't really see much in my life that I dislike, loathe or want to escape from. I think I'm becoming interested in ERE again because I want to be prepared for the time if/when I want to escape.

Am I naive?

I was in a very similar place to you for much of my career. I specifically remember telling a friend four years ago that I loved my job and felt like I knew exactly what I had been placed on this earth to do. One layoff and three employers later, the same career and life that I was perfectly content with then is now insufficient to sustain my happiness indefinitely. I certainly think I fall in Jacob's burnout category, but even beyond that is the simple reality that people change. I used to totally love designing cool new consumer electronics, and now the thought just no longer appeals to me at all. I'm just a different person now, and in retrospect I find the career-driven assumption that one will have the same motivations spanning 40+ years to be wholly dismissive of the true human experience.

So if you enjoy your job and your working life, that's wonderful. Enjoy the good times, and take the opportunity now to build an ERE system not necessarily to escape, but to have the freedom to shift gears as you grow older. Along those lines -- have you considered studying fashion and making your own clothes?

That's pretty much exactly my thinking at the moment - I'm trying to stay (relatively) on top of my spending as a way of opening options up. Just because there's been no real problems yet, doesn't mean there won't be, so I'm taking my enjoyment of work as it comes.

[oldbeyond]

I'm a big Cal Newport fan, and I think 'So Good They Can't Ignore You' is an amazing read, though potentially quite oppositional to ERE (not necessarily though).

I don't think they're opposite. Rather, Newport focuses on specialization whereas ERE focuses on generalization. In either case being so good they can't ignore you or at least good enough to be noticed helps a lot.

The risk of the "so good they can't ignore you" is the "small fish in a big ocean"-problem. For instance, it is very hard to be "so good they can't ignore you" in college football. In his book he gives an example of becoming an expert on a hard-to-understand computer science paper and subsequently deriving a lot of success and connections from that. However, that wouldn't work in a field where expertise on such a paper is required rather than optional.

It gets easier, a lot easier, if you're a "big fish in a small ocean". Here the "so good they can't ignore you" can really shine because you're not competing with a horde of other people who are also very good. In that regard, ironically, a good life strategy may be to figure out exactly how good you are. Then aim a little bit lower.

PS: That wasn't a repost. That was a bona fide new post!

I think there are a lot of good points here, but I also think that perhaps some of the context/environment necessary for Newport's advice could be contrarian to ERE. In other words, if you're wanting to become in demand and wanted, then you're focusing on your career capital (building rare and marketable skills) - for many on this board I get the impression that such skills (the marketable part is key) isn't really for them.

On the other hand, once one has those skills, it's definitely possible to demand flexibility and transition into the FI lifestyle that's desired.

From my perspective, if I were to take Newport's advice, it would only make sense if I was to work in my field for another 5+ years, otherwise the initial investment in time and energy are relatively pointless personally.

If you plan on tackling other challenges later on, you could approach mastering your field not as a way to accumulate career capital, but rather as an opportunity to "learn how to learn". As jacob has said before, there are only so many ways we use to interact with the world, so there's likely some overlap between even seemingly unrelated fields. If you've mastered, say, accounting, you'll probably have a head start in mastering, say, beer brewing, compared to someone who is no more than competent in any field. You'll also grow intellectually and emotionally, becoming better equipped to deal with procrastination, planning, insecurity, lateral thinking etc. Then again, you could do beer brewing on the side and do a decent enough job at your accounting to keep a salary coming in until FI. I guess it depends on your job. If you're stuck at work from 9-5 anyway, aiming for mastery might be a more interesting way to spend the time.

[freegan]

I understand how you feel about nice clothes-- it's very hard not to want them when they look so good on you. What I found to be helpful is reading about minimalist blogs (the minimalists and becoming minimalist) or environmentally conscious blogs (zerowastehome). It's made me more thoughtful about each purchase (i.e. do I have enough? How does this impact the earth? Maybe if I focus on the health and strength of my body, I don't need this or that to cover or embellish). I also teamed up with my sister to do a no clothes buying challenge and so far, nothing in 2014. I feel a sense of relief.
Good luck!

[Aus_E_Expat]

I am an Australian who is a long term expat.

See my introduction viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4371

I have known a lot of teachers (particularly Australian teachers) working as expats. I think it is fair to say you are never going to get rich as an expat teacher (unless you own the school), but you can live a comfortable life.
If the employer provides accommodation and pays your tax, you will do ok.

My observation is you need to teach in a proper, accredited school. There are a lot of "English" teaching centres around but most of them do not pay well and while they have positions for "native English speakers" you will often find yourself competing with Indians and Filippinos for those jobs (which means the employers set the salaries at Indian or Filippino levels).

But my advice to you is to do it - even if you just set your self a 2-3 year time frame to work overseas, you will almost certainly have the time of your life (compared to staying in Warrnambool).

A change of scenery and a change of culture is something you will not regret later in life - you can always go back to Warrnambool (or anywhere else in Australia) after 2 or 3 years, but if you never do it while you can (without family, commitments etc), you will regret it for the rest of your life.

I am still doing it - for me it is the going back to Australia that is the hard part now.

[LonerMatt]

OK, so I've had a fairly odd month, and I thought I'd post a bit about it prior to the financial side of things (which is coming in a few days).

So this month a few fairly revealing things happened:
1. I had a holiday from work (first quarter of the school year was up)
2. I started learning Mandarin
3. I realised I don't really engage with the job I have now, but I do get used to it

So, the holiday was GOOD. Really good. I lost weight, I exercised a lot, I read a lot, I reflected a lot, I slept a lot, I felt good, it was great. I realised, towards the end, that I wasn't so keen on going back to my current job, so I started to reflect - quite seriously - about why that was, and what might be better.

First, I realised that I am not loving my job, but it is vanilla and I do get used to it, however, at the end of holiday periods I enter this pining, ominous mindset where I'm lamenting having to return, purely because being able to do what I want > unfreedom. So, I fully expect that in two or three weeks I'll feel much more content and comfortable at work, I'll be back into a routine and that will be satisfying in of itself, but for the moment (been back one week) I'm not very satisfied at all.

Second, I realised that the current job I have is filled with a lot of mediocre inertia where many staff and students are convinced everything is peaches and cream despite the fact the results of the school are pathetic. This is fairly pernicious, and incredibly grating - previous jobs I've had were in much tougher schools, but I enjoyed it more, in part because almost everyone knew things SHOULD be better and was interested in making that happen - there was an energy and momentum to changing and improving that was infectious, and it's totally missing from this place.

Third, I realised that, no matter how shallow this is, I have a fairly significant desire to move overseas. So, instead of fighting it and trying to convince myself that it's a silly dream I'm doing it when my contract is up. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. End of the year my contract expires and I will NOT be renewing it, I'll be packing up, heading overseas and setting up after a few months of faffing around aimlessly. I am not sure if working OS will be better or worse than working here, to be honest, it's probably much of a muchness, but there are several things that I do think will be easier for me OS:
- Experiencing new things that I am excited by (I mean I could go to a car race, or gamble here, both of which are pretty popular and different, but fucking seriously?)
- Live in a city without spending $$$$$$$$$$ - the cities here are some of the most expensive in the world
- Learn a new language much more quickly and deeply than I would be here (more opportunity, etc)
- Transition into a part of education that I find/have found stimulating and is much more performance driven (teaching someone English is pretty much a results-game, IME, although I've read that's not the case in some countries)
- Something I was talking to takapunch about that's hard to articulate is the sense that 'home' or 'where I live' often becomes a kind of confinement - I've always been 'Matt, the guy who ...' here - no matter where I am, and while it SHOULD be as easy to recreate myself and be something different, in reality that's simply not the case, for whatever reason. I'd hoped moving around my country would allow me more freedom to experiment with myself - and it has - but I'm reaching the limits of that experiment - there's not many more new ways of living I can try here that in any way appeal to me - so it's off OS
- Being somewhere different is interesting and rewarding, I know that some find this an illogical point, but emotions are inherently irrational, so deal with it bitches!
- I'm sort of in love with a Taiwanese girl

Fourth, I decided to start learning Mandarin, so a couple of times a week I use Skype and have conversations almost exclusively in Mandarin. My vocab is limited, pronunciation is terrible and grammar inconsistent, but so far I'm really enjoying learning and am shocked with my progress (for the good). The amount of time I've spent in Asia hoping to 'pick up' the language was such a waste of time - if I'd just forced myself to speak it almost exclusively I could probably converse properly by now. People completely underrate the method of learning when attempting to learn something new - one has to find the best method that one can to learn the target skill.

One thing I really love about this community is that very few have worked out the answers or the way they want to live - we're all collectively sharing our thinking and trying to make sure that we're moving towards a better place - whatever that means to the individual. Looking over some of my older posts helps me understand where I'm coming from and where I can move towards, so I acknowledge that sometimes what I write contradicts what I said previously, but that's all part of the journey, no?

[takapunch]

Excellent! I always love seeing long, introspective posts. It seems fairly clear based on your own reflections that you desire the adventure, challenge, self-cultivation and freedom that come from living abroad, and I agree with you whole-heartedly. As long as you keep an open mind about what shape those opportunities will take, you can't go wrong.

I have one (unasked for) piece of advice about your last point: love (of a person) is often the worst possible reason to make any decision. When the choice is between love and ambition, choose ambition, because a worthy love wouldn't ask you to forsake ambition.