Tonight night we met up with some friends from back home who moved to New York about a year ago. As we were sat having dinner we discussed how living abroad subjects you to situations that you initially may be less comfortable with but soon take as being completely natural.
My first impression when I moved to Denmark in 2000 was how honest and forthcoming the Danes were. Sat in the lecture halls at Copenhagen Business School I was amazed and slightly intimidated by how much everyone already seemed to know. People would raise their hand and speak up not once or twice but all the time. Though they were very good I did soon realise that the mentality in Denmark was to a large extent what made everyone seem so knowledgeable. People weren’t afraid to speak their mind and even if they didn’t know the answer the culture meant that the students would still express their opinion. Being wrong and taking a stab at the “right” answer was encouraged and I found myself learning a lot from that. The Danes were a bit more forthcoming than us Swedes and in many ways I think that’s benefitted me when it comes to speaking my mind and daring to express my opinion.
When I moved to London and met D I soon became used to that people were having all sorts of careers. Coming from a university city and a country where university is free I’d never questioned whether to go to or not. In London I met a number of people who hadn’t but instead jumped straight into work and made their way up the ladder that way. Ways of life and career paths that were very uncommon back home were common in London and they soon became normal to me. With a greater mix of people and cultures I found that more people were talking about making their own jobs and daring to start projects and companies on the side. Of course people did that back home as well but not to the same extent. Over in London it was more widespread and less of a thing. There would always be something to fall back on if it didn’t work out. Even taking the decision to start freelance in London was easier. With so much work going around there was nothing to loose and that mentality has certainly helped in daring to take the leap out into the more unknown.
Going from Sweden to Denmark and then to the UK my horizon has opened up somewhat each time. The conversation we had tonight around the American mentality and way of life takes it one step further and I’m sure that if I’d lived over here I’d become even more daring as a person when it comes to making my own future. You learn so much by spending time in other cultures and though they may be similar to what we’re used to, small differences can help enrich our lives and stop us from taking what we’re used to as the only way of doing things.
Tomorrow – Day 281 | Making a wrong turn
Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/dramaqueennorma/191063346
