Most Life Abroad Content Is Fooling You

I'm not writing about moving abroad. I'm writing about what happens after.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve written a series of essays that nuance the same question:

What happens when a functioning adult steps outside the system that made them competent and has to keep going anyway?

Most writing about life abroad doesn’t go there. It either sells escape or catalogs inconvenience.

I’m interested in what happens in between—where nothing is broken, nothing is solved, and you’re still required to function.

Not some delusional utopia at a predefined point:

• The first six months are hard, then it clicks

• Once you’re fluent, life opens up

• After year one, you feel settled

That model is false.

Not pessimistic. Not cynical. Just inaccurate.

There’s another version of this content emerging now, and it’s just as misleading—if not more so.

I’m as skeptical as anyone of the relocation-consultant ecosystem: the opportunistic grifters who manufacture problems so they can “solve” them, sow uncertainty so they can sell certainty, and start charging money before the ink is even dry on their own paperwork—paperwork they probably outsourced.

That crowd has been a bad addition to this space for a while.

But I also take real issue with the newer genre of writing that frames ordinary adulthood as deception.

You’ve probably seen it.

“I spent €27,840 in six months living in Spain—here are the costs Americans were never told about.”

And then the reveal: Furniture basics. Kitchen essentials. Bedding and towels. American comfort food. Setup costs. Moving friction.

This is not deception. This is life.

It’s the cost of moving anywhere—sometimes only crosstown. People tend to conveniently ignore these types of expenses until they have to pay them. Then they act all blindsided—disingenuously cluelessness.

No one was tricked because they had to buy forks, sheets, or couldn’t give up fake peanut butter.

What’s really happening in this content isn’t exposure. It’s entitlement.

A unspoken expectation that moving abroad should come with a free ride. That inconvenience should be waived. That friction should be discounted because you made a brave decision.

Look what I did—now you owe me.

But adulthood doesn’t work that way. Immigration definitely doesn’t.

Call yourself an expat all day long—you’re still playing by the same rules as someone moving from New York to Toronto. And you still have it infinitely easier than people escaping actual hardship, not a burned-out office worker upset about $10 pints.

You can acknowledge that opportunistic consultants oversell the dream and still recognize that complaining about normal setup costs misses the point entirely. Holding conflicting thoughts has become a lost art in a society that lacks the emotional maturity to see beyond dichotomies.

This friction—logistical, psychological, financial—isn’t an unanticipated flaw.

It’s the cost of doing the business of life.

You can respond to it in one of two ways as proof you were deceived or treat it as part of the work you knowingly signed up for.

Most content never makes that distinction. It either sells escape or performs grievance.

I’m interested in neither.

I’m interested in what happens when you accept that this is the landscape—and decide how you’re going to function in it without shortcuts, theatrics, or blame. When you refuse to treat the hard parts of moving abroad like problems. Like they‘re something to brashly and egotistically resist, then finally put behind you.

Because they aren’t obstacles on the way to the experience.

They are the experience—just as much as the parts that bring ease, beauty, and joy instead of discomfort.

Over the last six essays, I’ve approached this from different angles—ego, competence, identity, discomfort—not as standalone stories, but as part of an organized flow derived from my daily life after one year living in Spain.

How It Works: What Moving to Spain Really Changes in You—And What It Absolutely Doesn’t

My ego softened. My social world changed—and expanded. My relationship with the future changed.

My anxiety didn’t disappear. The way I work didn’t magically transform. My interests didn’t change—they intensified.

How It Works: The Myth of Reinvention Abroad—and the Truth About What Actually Changes

Then, you get to the place and a few things happen:

1. You realize that not everyone there eats a big meal at midday, siestas, stays out late. People eat when they’re hungry and sleep when they’re tired unless work or life gets in the way.

2. You realize your routines and ways of doing things aren’t “American” or “wannabe Spanish.” They’re human. They’re yours.

3. You rediscover yourself during the settling-in process, which—in part—means rediscovering the things that make you excited to wake up each morning and do life.

If you have your shit in order, there’s no honeymoon period. There’s just a few months of finding your legs and—as it turns out—reestablishing your routines and ways of doing things in a place that elevates them. The place doesn’t change who you are so much as it reshapes what you already do.

How Moving Abroad Resets Your Sense of Self

What separates the people who make it abroad from the people who implode?

Not fluency. Not brashness or bravado. Certainly not volume. Not being “worldly.” Not talking about your supposed successes where you come from.

It’s whether you can sit inside the discomfort long enough for it to turn into capability.

Because that’s the trade-off every immigrant faces, whether they acknowledge it or not:

Your comfort in exchange for a more accurate version of yourself.

Why Moving Abroad Makes You Feel Stupid — And Why That’s the Point

This is what happens anytime you choose a life that doesn’t automatically validate your strengths—changing careers, starting something from scratch, committing to a demanding practice, or opting into any path where much of what you already (think you) know ends up pretty much useless.

Moving abroad just makes the process impossible to ignore. The environment changes. The rules change. And suddenly, the version of you that used to feel capable can’t come with you.

That’s not failure. That’s the work.

How It Works: The Hidden Rule of Life Abroad

What exactly do I mean by loss of competence? I could go on all day, but here are some examples:

• You can speak, but not precisely.

• You understand, but always a beat late.

• You complete tasks, but without confidence or almost always with rehearsal.

• You interact socially, but with tons of doubt after the fact.

These things aren’t failures. They’re just the default. And I don’t think it’s possible to ever fully erase your incompetence—or be fully competent—when you’re operating in a culture that has a head start on you.

How You Rebuild Competence Abroad (Without Waiting to Feel Ready)

Ultimately—and this is tough—you have to stop yourself from seeking fluency, mastery, and more confidence than a reasonable person would expect.

You need tolerance. Tolerance for being a half-step behind. Tolerance for doing things without certainty. Tolerance for not being the sharpest person in the room—and not needing to fix that immediately.

This is why people who thrive abroad aren’t the ones who “figure it out” fastest.

Read individually, these essays look like reflections on life abroad.

Read together, they describe something broader:

What it takes to remain engaged, useful, and alive when you no longer feel sharp, fluent, or in control.

That applies to moving abroad. It also applies to aging, changing careers, leaving familiar systems, and refusing to give into bitterness and stagnation in the second half of life.

In 2026, I’ll keep writing from inside this system—including a month in Paris this spring—not as a travel diary, but as continued field notes on adaptation and staying engaged without shortcuts.

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If this way of looking at life abroad resonates—not the fantasy, not the complaining, but the mechanics of staying engaged inside discomfort—that’s what I write about here.

I publish How It Works as ongoing field notes on competence, adaptation, and building a life that doesn’t give into stagnation—despite the strong temptation.

You can subscribe below.