In June 2012, ex-AskMen editor Michael McKenna decided to pull up stakes and move to Pristina, Kosovo, a formerly war-torn quasi-capital that, until very recently, he could not have located on a map. Though his friends warned of organ theft, mysterious white vans and an inordinate surfeit of goats, and his dad assumed he had lost a bet, it’s all going pretty well so far. You can read his thoughts on Balkan life at inpristina.com, but for his reasoning as to why this was not the most insane thing he could have possibly done, check out this first installment of AskMen’s Expat’s Diary.If you haven’t been somewhere, the way that you imagine it to be, however you imagine it to be, is wrong.
A man should always keep one eye on the road, and should, at certain key periods in his life, strike out in new and distant directions. Just check the archetypes: John Wayne strides off into the sunset while Norman Bates stares balefully at it through a window. Even back in Book of Job times, it was that most worldly of Old Testament personages who confessed to spending his time “walking the earth,” and, as far as we can tell from our surroundings, it’s still working out great for him.
Our point is, whether it’s a new job across the country, a backpacking trip around the world or a year as a freelance journalist in Europe’s kidney-stealing-est region, it does a man good to shake things up and explore new horizons -- even when he’s not sure what’s going to come of it. It’s a difficult economy out there, and the odds of receiving that killer LinkedIn message (“We have been admiring your torrent-downloading skills from afar and would like to offer you a position as head software developer…”) are smaller than ever. In this sort of climate, it’s the risk-takers who are going to uncover the scarce rewards, while swelling crowds of too-timid guys gather at O’Failehey’s on Tuesday nights, talking about high school track.
It’s always hard to leave your comfort zone, and it can be challenging to picture yourself in drastically altered surroundings, but it’s worth the struggle. After all…
You Will Learn About The World You Live In
I have not seen a single goat since arriving in Pristina -- seriously. Not even one.This is only noteworthy because, in the weeks leading up to my departure, my friends and family were having a ball describing the probable Flintstones-esque shortcomings of my new, powered-primarily-by-goats city.
It’s a lazy, post-Borat bit of comedy, of course, but it also raises an important point: If you haven’t been somewhere, the way that you imagine it to be -- however you imagine it to be -- is wrong. I obviously knew that Pristina was not the Goatropolis of my buddies’ labored asides, but I didn’t know, for instance, that it is home to a café culture that has increased my caffeine intake by about 1,000% (seriously, those macchiatos). I didn’t know that it is a dense, hilly, minaret-studded city that looks like a bowl of pearls at night. I didn’t know that it is one of the frontlines in the war for European journalism, where veteran correspondents are starting shakily funded, bipartisan news outlets in a desperate attempt to free the country from the bitter divisions of its history.
To find all that out, I had to come here. And having discovered this, I am that much more aware that there are vast parts of the world that, in my mind, remain hasty collages of outdated stereotypes and regional livestock. The more of the world you see through experience, the less you see through the hack-ish eyes of “It’s A Small World After All” ride designers. And that’s a good reason to get out there. Also…
You Will Conquer Your Fears
Where knowledge ends, imagination begins -- and imagination is not always the positive thing that your kindergarten teacher made it out to be. As noted above, our minds tend to sketch over those parts of life not yet covered by experience, and sometimes goat-powered taxis and unfathomable, rude-to-refuse local delicacies (“is from internal of pig; best for men!”) are the least problematic things it comes up with.What if you don’t make any friends? What if the new job turns on you? What if it rains all the time, or your new coworkers love karaoke, or Franz Ferdinand Part Two (the gritty reboot!) is shot in Mitrovica, causing World War III to break out in the Balkans?
Once you introduce the idea of changing your surroundings, your mind tends to make drastic changes to everything else as well -- especially your sources of comfort. When you imagine yourself in a strange and distant place, you tend to forget the human constants: people getting up and driving to work, kids teasing their younger brothers on the basketball court, the smell of barbecue on a lazy Sunday. All of these things, though, animate my daily life in Kosovo to a far greater degree than do wars and ultimatums.
Besides, there’s no reason that terrible things can’t happen right where you are. What if a plane falls on your house? What if a dog bites you? What if you stumble blearily into the shower tomorrow morning but spiders come out instead of water? Food for thought!
It Will Make You A Better Man
Ultimately, the thing about moving has less to do with the destination, and more to do with the internal and external obstacles you must overcome in order to take that first step. Once you have proved to yourself that you are able to think clearly and rationally in the face of the aforementioned fears, and that you trust yourself to adapt intelligently to new and challenging situations, you keep that capacity for good. You take it home with you, and it’s probably the most valuable thing you’ll bring back. You should make sure it is, actually -- those dogs can smell anything.Read more : http://www.askmen.com/fine_living/travel/expat-diary.html
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