The Life We Think We Want
Every day, another video appears.
Someone has moved to Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, or some small village most of us had never heard of before. The comments quickly fill with the same questions.
Are you lonely?
Do you miss your family?
Do you regret it?
Even the interviewers seem to be asking the same questions now.
The assumption is always the same: leaving must come with a cost, and that cost is usually measured in people.
Yet after watching dozens of these stories, I have begun to wonder if we are asking the wrong questions.
One woman left America at seventy years old and bought a crumbling house in France. The house had no heat, no running water, and needed more work than she expected. Her children thought she had lost her mind.
Three years later, she is still there.
When people ask how she is doing, she does not talk about her social life. She does not count her friends. She does not speak about networking opportunities or community events.
Instead, she says:
“I have a roof over my head and it isn’t leaking. I am fine.”
Perhaps she understands something many of us have forgotten.
Not everyone is looking for the same life.
A young family moved abroad because they could not accept the idea of teaching their three-year-old child what to do during a school shooting. They were not looking for adventure. They were looking for peace of mind.
Another person leaves for healthcare.
Someone else leaves for affordability.
Someone leaves because they are curious.
Someone leaves because they are tired.
Someone leaves because they want a second chance.
And some leave for no reason other than the simple realization that they are still alive and would like to experience something different.
Yet we keep discussing these decisions as though everyone is searching for the same thing.
They are not.
What fascinates me most is how often people move to a new country while expecting it to behave like the one they left behind.
They complain about the weather that existed before they arrived.
They complain about customs that have been there for centuries.
They complain about bureaucracy that locals have been complaining about for generations.
The country did not change.
Their expectations collided with reality.
Perhaps the real challenge of moving abroad is not learning a language or navigating paperwork.
Perhaps the real challenge is accepting a place for what it is.
I once knew someone who spent decades in a new country while emotionally remaining in the old one. The language never became their language. The culture never became their culture. Their memories, habits, entertainment, and daily routines remained anchored to the place they had left behind.
In many ways, they never truly arrived.
And perhaps that is another question we rarely ask.
Are you moving to experience a place?
Or are you trying to recreate the place you left?
Those are two very different journeys.
What surprises me most is how often loneliness becomes the center of the conversation.
As if every human being wants the same amount of company.
As if a quiet life is automatically a sad one.
As if being alone and being lonely are the same thing.
They are not.
Some people need a large circle of friends.
Some need family nearby.
Some need constant activity and conversation.
Others are perfectly content with a few meaningful relationships, a daily routine, a place they enjoy, and enough peace to hear themselves think.
Yet many interviews treat solitude as a warning sign.
A risk.
A problem waiting to happen.
The question is rarely:
“Are you happy?”
The question is:
“Are you lonely?”
Perhaps that says more about us than it does about the people being interviewed.
Perhaps we have become so uncomfortable with solitude that we assume anyone choosing it must secretly be suffering.
The irony is that many people move abroad for the same reason others move across town.
They are trying to build a life that feels more like their own.
Not a perfect life.
Not a fantasy.
Just one that fits.
Because no country is perfect.
Every place has inconveniences.
Every place has frustrations.
Every place has weather someone dislikes.
Every place has rules that make little sense to outsiders.
The question is not whether imperfections exist.
The question is whether what you gain is worth what you give up.
For some people, the answer will be no.
For others, the answer will be yes.
And perhaps that answer has less to do with geography than we think.
Perhaps it has everything to do with understanding what we were truly looking for in the first place.
The internet keeps asking whether moving abroad will make you lonely.
Perhaps the better question is this:
What kind of life are you trying to build?
Because once you know the answer to that, the country becomes only part of the story.
