Big pictures: settling abroad

“What seems most important to us in our 20s, 30s and 40s will look insignificant as we rise the ladder of age,” said the monk.

As I highlighted these lines, I felt a trail of faces shifting in front of my eyes. I had a deep appreciation for them as I crossed paths with them in different stages of my life. Some of them were younger and some were twice my age.

All had now settled abroad with something still ‘unsettled’ inside them. Their range of experiences enabled me to look at a bigger horizon — the subject of this opinion.

They let go their relationships, jobs, statuses and community for the sake of settling abroad. Now they had vanished into the thin air of the “greener pastures”. They all opined that the developed world indeed offers numerous opportunities, but it is also vital to understand the financial, social and psychological challenges associated.

A myopic approach to making a permanent decision usually leads to lifelong regret once the person has achieved one’s material goals.

“I married a Japanese woman, and though my wife is nice, I have a hard time adjusting to Japanese food. I can cook my food myself but my children are being raised in a culture unknown to me. I feel a constant cultural rift as I cannot return to my country. It has been twenty years since I went back. All my family, my siblings and my cousins back home are now alien to me. I do not know if my kids will ever know about my roots,” said Saad a guy working for the Japanese railway company.

“Twenty-seven years ago, I came to the USA and remarried here while already having four kids and a wife in Pakistan. Because of my absence, my kids could not study much. All of them just finished mediocre. We leased a petrol pump in Texas but selling hard drinks at the ‘Tuck Shop’ always made me guilty. COVID happened and everything was finished. We sold our petrol pump, house and cars as everything was on lease. Now I want to return to Pakistan but none of my own is alive back home. I am just driving Uber here. I am not sure if I could have been better working as a doctor in my community in Sindh,” shared Dr Aslam who came to pick me up in Uber.

In a rat race, a lot of youngsters may be overlooking the opportunities that are present in the country and focus on just a ‘dollar a day strategy’ to design their future life abroad spending their hard-earned money to get visas and immigration.

“My father died; I could not get the ticket. Did not see his face even,” said Amna who signed up for a “marriage” abroad after finishing her master’s in engineering. She now lives alone after divorce and works at a local market.

A huge number of graduates going abroad are selling pizzas, working as security staff or ending up as phone operators. The market is highly competitive, and several candidates are rising for every post and a licence is needed for every job. Even when you get the job; racism, nepotism and nationalism come into play. They do not make use of all the years of work and money they have put in to get a professional degree.

It is very important that young people especially those who have professional degrees look at the ‘big picture’ and give a deep thought to what they are opting for. Just landing in a developed country and posting pictures on Instagram is not enough. The benefit-to-cost ratio must be calculated rationally.

On the other hand, the government and society in general should also try to uplift itself so that a lot of people who do not want to leave the country can stay at home and work. The current model of the government and the society to run the economy on the expat’s earnings is not sustainable in the long run.