Finding a new you in a new place

The older we get, the more our personalities tend to become set in stone. It’s not that we lose our capacity for change. Rather, with increasing age, we usually live increasingly routinised lives - the grooves of daily habit become deeper, our repertoires of experience narrower. As a general rule (though there are exceptions), we increasingly mix with the same people, visit the same places, perform the same tasks at work and at home. The world asks increasingly repetitive questions of us and we in turn come back with the same answers.

Making the decision to relocate to another country therefore offers a tantalising prospect: the chance to shake the ‘snow globe’ of your life and see where the pieces land. The new customs, language, landscape, and people will almost inevitably change you, and often for the better.