Reason Rightly or Do Wrongly

There is a post on the Escape from America Magazine site titled “Do you want to Become an Expat Retiree for the Right Reasons?”

The author offers ten good reasons to become an Expat. I’ll paraphrase.

Fascinated by other cultures

Willing to leave loved ones

Willing to learn another language

Willing to use alternative transportation

Willing to shop differently

Have a sense of adventure, especially for food

Willing to deal with cultural diversity, which might seem like adversity

You are self-sufficient

You love new cultures and being part of them

You want to assimilate.

Ignoring the political commentary, since I’m not sure I agree, but that’s okay, the author offers a list of NOT good reasons to become an Expat.

The USA is headed for fiscal disaster and you want to avoid it

The value of the US Dollar is collapsing, and the economy is tanking

The USA is becoming Socialist

Your white race is being diluted by immigrants

The UN is taking over the USA

NAFTA is destroying the USA

The government wants to take all your guns

We pay too much tax, and our tax money is misspent

The USA is becoming a police state

You want to get away from the author (and those like him)

The key lesson here is to make sure you’re leaving the US for the right reasons. I get that. I like the USA. For one thing, I spent over half a century becoming acclimated to the culture and the people, diverse as they are. I like the freedoms this country has to offer. Now I could blather on how our freedoms are being compromised, but I guess if we don’t fight to retain them, we deserve to lose them.

So ignoring the politics (trying to ignore the politics) in the article, it seems simple.

Move to another country if you are willing to immerse yourself in another culture, and become part of it. 

Don’t move to another country if you want to avoid financial pain. Financial pain follows you!

When I was a much younger fellow, not even a full-grown man, I wanted to move to other countries and walk through them, assimilating the culture and becoming as much a native as I could. I still think I’d like to do that. But I confess it is the financial that motivates me right now.

What I’d like to do is afford to retire somewhere in the USA. My concern (and the focus of International Living Magazine, an entirely different site) is that I cannot afford to retire in the USA and might want to find somewhere else to retire. Might NEED to find somewhere else to retire, or I won't be able to retire. But maybe that isn’t enough…

I don’t know. As usual, I ponder and ponder.

And someday, Lord willing and prayerfully hoping I am physically able, perhaps I’ll do a walkabout through another country. And maybe they won’t know I’m not a native after a while.