6 main lessons I learned from life in America

Life in another country is like an accelerated program with daily exams. At first it is difficult, and then she herself is surprised how much she has learned and understood in a relatively short time. Today I will tell you what I learned in America.

1. Do not be afraid to start from scratch

Moving to another country is a school of life that can’t be compared with anything else in terms of both the quantity and quality of the experience gained. Here, one might say, it’s a year in five: to stay afloat, you need to learn so much in the shortest possible time!

Sometimes you even feel as if you are a person recovering from a stroke, it is so strange to re-learn familiar things like that. It seems that there is nothing difficult in talking, looking for housing and work, meeting people, because you did it all at home many times, but it turns out that everything is different in America, and this deviation from the usual picture of the world is not always it is easy, and sometimes even baffling.
The lack of material and moral support from relatives is even more depressing, because they are not only physically distant, but also cannot imagine and understand your problems due to the lack of similar experience.

However, after going through a difficult period of adaptation, you feel that now you can cope with any difficulties and can take care of yourself wherever you are. Yes, and make new friends.

2. Feel free to discuss the problem, find out the partner’s position

From the side of a quarrel between Americans, they often look like the techniques of a psychoanalyst: a person irritated by the behavior of another family member, friend or colleague does not yell at him (at least right away), but simply asks many suggestive questions, figuring out why the "opponent" he does so, and trying to get to his deepest motivation.

From the psychoanalyst, the initiator of the quarrel is distinguished only by the fact that he does not put the second participant in the conflict on the couch, and even his emotions prevent him from speaking in the same professional and impartial voice. However, with the exception of very extreme cases, Americans restrain themselves from shouting and accusing them, directing an unpleasant conversation to solve a specific problem, and not to exterminate the nerve cells of their own and their interlocutor.

And it gives an excellent result - the “opponent” calmly expresses his point of view, conflicts in most cases are neutralized, and relations are not destroyed. But the problems arising from a person due to pent-up anger will be solved by his psychoanalyst.

3. Search positive

At first, American optimism made me skeptical and even mocking, but over time, I myself stopped thinking about hypothetical problems all the time and was amazed how much more pleasant I began to live. Even the wrinkles on the forehead smoothed out.

In fact, focusing on the positives and expecting life to give you gifts rather than blows is a good strategy. This may not affect the real future, but the present becomes much better.

4. Be simpler

Unwritten norms of everyday life in the United States is much softer than in Russia, so in America you feel much freer in everything - in the choice of clothes, hairstyle, interlocutor.

Not that I love pajamas so much that I want to go to them everywhere, right up to the theater and the bank, but I’m warm at heart that if I wish, I can do just that without risking going to a mental hospital or the police.

I like the fact that you can communicate equally freely with people from your social circle and with those whose incomes are hundreds of times higher than yours. And your attitude towards you will be determined only by how interesting you are, not by what you do and how much you earn.

5. To be more mobile

Perhaps this was not taught me by America by itself, but simply by moving to another country. Still, when you change a continent, changing cities on a new continent is not a problem at all.

With a shudder, I remember how in Russia I had, living in St. Petersburg, every three months to go to the place of registration and save tickets so that, if I was stopped on the street to check my documents, I would pretend that I would be in the city for a while and would soon leave home, or just recently came from there.

Now it seems to be nonsense that you cannot live without registering for more than 90 days in another city of your own country.

And in America after that you feel like a balloon - live as much as you want and wherever you want, your travels around the country are limited only by financial means for moving and the weight of your suitcases.

6. Tolerant to other nationalities and cultures

Life in America very quickly expands the horizons and makes you open to the perception of everything new and unusual, including those of foreign national and religious traditions.

Immigrants who reject all that is unusual, that there is, life turns into a complete denial and search for enemies, and they can not even enjoy the good things that America gives them.

In an adequate person, consciousness itself is adjusted to accept new ideas and knowledge possessed by others, even if these people are not at all like him. With open, interested communication with representatives of other nationalities, he receives as much information as he would not have learned even a year by reading books about distant countries.

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