Learn to expect the unexpected. Or better yet, learn not to expect anything at all. Life abroad is much easier that way.
When you move to a new country its easy to arrive with certain expectations surrounding the things that you might be accustomed to in your home country. In Canada, for example, things happen, and they happen fast so you build up a certain expectation or standard for what is acceptable. If you live in a big city you can pretty much get whatever you need delivered to your front door and have it there within the hour and if its not there within the promised time-window, someone is always held accountable. Things are not exactly like that in Mexico. In fact, often times things arrive on their own timeline and if they don’t arrive, you opt to wait until they do. And they almost always do, one way or another, but there certainly isn’t the same sense of urgency to get shit done here that you would typically experience in cities around Canada, Podunk towns aside.
There is a lot of talk about this whole slow down culture movement that has me thinking about which side I‘d rather be on. The trouble for a person like me who is living in a place where things move at their own pace, but working in a different place where the mentality is the complete opposite, its difficult to find a happy medium sometimes. You consistently feel like you’re in two places at once and are never truly emersed in either one. Things and people usually run late here in Mexico and its to be expected. Thats just the way it goes. But there is just not the same understanding in Canada, and when I try to explain this to my Canadian peeps there is little to no understanding. When I am in Canada I miss the Mexico way of life, and when I am in Mexico I miss the Canadian way of life. I am, as they say, one fickle bitch. The main problem for me is, I strive to live like a Mexican, but I am bound by the ways of Canada’s bureaucratic nonsense. I was raised there so there’s always this nagging voice in the back of my head saying go go go, when my current vibe is more like, no no no (lol). I think Mexicans got it figured out though. Its not a perfect country by any means and there are plenty of problems here, just like there are in Canada albeit a little bit more in your face and less backdoor-y type of corruption, but overall the people here seem to enjoy life. And they seem happy. This isn’t a blanket statement, of course there are different paces in different places, different strokes for different folks, as they say, and this is just my opinion after all. But I do enjoy going back and forth between the two counties and getting the opportunity to miss both in their own unique ways when I am gone.
I will say, if you are planning to move to Mexico from somewhere like Canada or the US, prepare yourself because its the little things that you might take for granted that you will find more difficult here, but the reward of living in a new place and experiencing new things, cultures, foods, people, etc., is irreplicable in terms of gaining life experience. Sure you might miss your tax return deadline because your courier package never left the airport to begin with and yeah that might suck sometimes, but the risk vs the reward is huge, on the ladder side. I imagine what my life would look like today had I never left my little city. What my view on the world would be like. What sort of values I would instill in my kids life. What type of cool stories will I tell her when she becomes legal drinking age and we can laugh over a glass or two of vino tinto. Life is an adventure and should be lived that way. Maybe thats the secret to happiness.
