that is the question.

“Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know”

                             (Should I stay or should I go, The Clash)

A while back I had a conversation with a friend of a friend. We talked about where I’d like to live in the future. He said he was jealous because it’s so easy for some people to move abroad. This made me laugh, because it’s never easy to move abroad, but it’s a default for me. I always assume I will move somewhere else.

Moving and starting over in a new place is never easy; you have to find a job or a place to study, apply for a visa, find a place to live in and furniture, open up a bank account, get a phone contract, find friends, learn how to get from place to place and possibly all this in a foreign language. Once you’ve done it a few times it gets easier though, you shrink your possessions into a few suitcases and you settle down quicker because you’ve been through it before.

For me it’s actually easier to leave than it is to stay. Staying means commitment, it means I have to look further than a year or two. It means I have to have long-term plans and I have no idea how long I will stay in this particular apartment. I’m puzzled; half of me wants to buy heavy comfortable furniture, the other half wants to keep just the bare minimum because it’s such a hassle to move a sofa around. Owning a car, a double bed or (God help me) an apartment is scary!

I turned the conversation around and said I was jealous of people who have a network (check out my thoughts on networking).

Staying in one place or moving to another is not determined by how much effort it takes, it’s about reasons: if there are more reasons to go than there are to stay, it’s easier to go –and vice versa.