NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION: IS THIS THE YEAR YOU FINALLY LIVE ABROAD?
Don’t let the YouTube caption fool you - positive reflections on living in Japan as a Black Man
It’s January 2, 2019 and many of us have spent a good deal of time, thinking about what the future holds. What this new year will bring to our lives, that years past didn’t deliver. Some call it the “New Year New Me” syndrome. Yeah, there’s humor in that, and I’m not a fan of the idea that a single day, made up within an imaginary time transition, is what catapults you to success - but I do believe in self reflection. I do believe in finding ways to chase your interests, and set new boundaries for yourself.
It’s this thinking, that brought me to explore the power of travel and living abroad. Travel, living life to the fullest, seeing more of the world - always sits within the top 10 of New Year’s resolutions - yet many of us remain committed to our small corners of the world. Our neighborhood, our city, our country, our “community”, etc… In this article, I wanted to spend a bit of time exploring why living abroad may be one of the top things some of us as BDads may want to consider in our futures.
You may have heard of “self concept clarity”, or the extent in which someone’s understanding of self is clearly and confidently defined, internally, consistent, and temporally stable. This idea has been written about within a few recent studies examining the benefits of self confidence and belief. When it comes to living abroad, according to research conducted by Rice University and a recent May article in Harvard Business Review - the separation from our patterns of thinking actually bring most people to a higher sense of self. Think of it this way. When you wake up and decide to walk up the beach in Venice, or catch a train in SoHo, or grab a hot dog in Chicago - these are things that you’ve grown up doing. Everyone else does them. And so…most of us don’t have a daily point of reference of why we do these things. Why we watch Netflix, why we raise our kids to go to Harvard or learn to play instruments. We see this as normal in our culture, but don’t necessarily come to associate or at least understand it as a true sense of self behavior.
It’s when we are forced outside of these patterns, not occasionally, but quite often, we encounter more self-discerning reflections - which are thoughts that challenge our beliefs in why we are who we are. As we do this, more and more, we either start to loose a grip on this inherited sense of self or we actually come to more confidence in who we are, by allowing for more congruent feedback that shows us internal and external views of who we are. When the two - self evaluation and outside evaluation align - research shows increases in all the life treats we like. Life satisfaction, better career choices, lower stress, and greater creativity. While I don’t have empirical research to support this, many of the black men I know that have lived abroad find a greater sense of global connectivity and freedom than they’ve ever experienced at home. Outside the US, while racism and bigotry still exist, finding yourself as the only black man or black family in a sea of “other” provides this strange space to live the human life you’ve always wanted. No stereotypes to support or defy.
There’s also the expansion of what we call “the nod”. At home, we walk the street, sea of non black folks, see one black man - we say hi, or give “the nod”. Imagine this outside the US. When I traveled in France and Spain - I remember “the nod” accelerating to full on conversations and love with other black men from African countries, Asia, Europe, other parts of the US. There’s this sense of “oneness” when traveling and living in a space where you are one of few.
And for the kids that are living with you abroad - they’re what some researchers call “Third Culture Kids (TCK)”. According to a Michigan State University Institute of International Studies set of reasearch, which drew conclusions based on the self-reported comments of 696 respondents, people who spent at least one year of their childhood outside of their home country were four times more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree. Of the 81 percent of TCKs who completed a bachelor’s degree, half earned postgraduate degrees. Respondents credited their academic achievements to the high quality of overseas schools and to educated parents. The flip side of this is a wealth of mixed research on the challenges of re-entry into the US for young kids. That whole worldly view thing, gets knocked back a bit to the US norms and this can be a staggering change for young kids, but overall the success rates of TCKs seems to be positive and maybe further support for BDads to take that leap and explore the world they’ve dreamed of, not just for a 2 week vacation, but as a life change - one that can knock off a New Year’s Resolution if you’ve ever had one!
