Being a British expat is not easy in these times, at least not for me and many people I know. Many people who have had successful businesses for several years have seen their life turn upside down in the financial crisis. People who have made their lives in another country which has become their home for decades are now having to give that life up and go back to their home country in the hope that 'home' will provide the shelter and support they need. These are sad times in this case, for both the people who are losing their 'lives' and those who are then affected by that in a secondary way. Something which keeps coming to my mind is all the restaurants and bars that are closing and how that affects these holiday resorts for now and the future. Also all the expat services which are a great support to the expat community are disappearing, again making the expat's life more difficult.
For me, all I seem to hear are stories of problems and distress, not to mention the tough time we ourselves are having, the job market is very small with no support. Some of our good friends have decided to go back to England in the next month and it has put me into conflication. What should we do, what can we do? Should we stay or go? It makes me remember and examine the reasons we came here, it's a big mess in my mind. All the things to consider, quality of life vs cost of living. education, future prospects to name a few. How do you weigh all these different things up?
Then on the other hand I have read a couple of articles, posts lately about people talking about emigrating out of the UK, because of the lack of jobs, cost of living - the complete opposite of what I am thinking. At the moment there seems to be very few people doing well and the people who are surviving here are generally people who have online businesses or can work remotely, such as designers, writers etc, the people who do not rely on the geographical location for work opportunities. I know no where is having it easy at the moment in terms of lack of work, rising costs, austerity measures, the list goes on, but how do you make that decision of what's best without having just a 'grass is greener' mentality. It is a normal reaction when times are hard to want to run home, isnt it?