5 March, 2021
Had a lot on my mind yesterday especially with Tim coming over to take photos of our place so we can list it for rent + Sarah crying when looking for places to stay in Sydney. Definitely had second thoughts about the move and if it would be easier to give up on this idea completely and carry on life as it is now. After all, aren’t our minds wired to avoid pain and to gain pleasure?
So instead of turning to my wife to talk about it, I turned to Google and found a NYT article about the psychology of moving. Though it wasn’t quite about casual migration from a first world country to another, it did have a bunch of quotable quotes:
“Panic can really set in around your home. It’s a matrix of safety, so moving is incredibly stressful and people don’t realize it - they mainly talk about the packing and the external part of moving” or “The prospect of leaving the place that is the center of your universe or the one constant in your life can be frightening” and my favourite:
“No matter how much you move, you still take yourself with you.”
A lot of the doubt around the move has been the difficulty of letting go of things - Our house, our car, career, stable income, family, friends, and Lexus (Our dog, not our car though I wish it was. Side track fun fact - Throughout our eight years+ together, we’ve had a total of two cars. The first was a red 1.5L Toyota Vios that was my brother’s. The second was a red 1.5L Toyota Vios that was my neighbours. End of side track fun fact).
It feels like we’re giving up all of these things for essentially nothing over there. Rental house, rental car, no jobs, no friends, no families. We’re trading down rather than up.
OK I FREAKED MYSELF OUT. WE’RE CANCELLING THE MOVE!
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