Why don't you move abroad?

To people who are considering moving abroad you should do it.

Don't let nationalism stop you. You were randomly born in your country.

Choose your country. Don't let randomness and some emotional baggage control where you want to live.

You have a finite live. Make most of it.

Nationalism is not the thing stopping most people.

It's your friends, family and the feeling of belonging. This is culture, not nationalism. I lived in Canada for 10 years before moving back home. I had a great life in Canada, fulfilled things I quite literally never dreamed possible, but I didn't belong.

I lived my life between vacations, just waiting for the time that I can go back home and spend time with family. I realized this is no way to live life.

Yeah, people who have only spent a year or two abroad so not understand the consequences of staying there permanently.

Estranged friends and family. Aging and dying parents. Feeling like a foreigner in your country of origin (reverse culture shock). Your own children, at the end of the day, belong to a foreign culture rather than your own. Etc.

This. Big chance you'll lose all of your friends, and family ties will suffer greatly. One of my friends moved from Europe to Australia. I think I'm the only one that visited him.

I mean, you should kind of expect that if you move to the other end of the world?

It is one of those things that sounds "obvious" when somebody points it out to you, but I can tell you from personal experience and from several other people that when you are in the midst of moving abroad you have lots of other things in your mind and, frankly, rose colored glasses on.

What you find online tends to be the many people who spent a year or two abroad talking about what a cool experience it was, not long-term immigrants publicly admitting the downsides of their past choices. It is a very common feeling that is rarely spoken about outside of immigrant communities.

If you pay attention to the comments, you will find that the people who only talk about the positives of moving abroad either haven't done it, or did it but they went back to their country of origin. Where are the long-term immigrants --typically with spouses and children-- talking only about the positives? And for the many who return... if living abroad was so great, why did you move back? Why don't you tell people about that as well?