How I See The U.S. After Living Abroad

i recently returned to the u.s after it felt like a lifetime away i was a little shocked at first witnessing all the things i'd forgotten about no public transportation non-walkable cities and this might sound strange but just the distance between everything like huge spaces just taken up by cars parking lots and concrete and it feels so strange to me now because when i was living in uruguay i could easily walk to restaurants coffee shops and bakeries all within five to ten minutes of my house but where i'm at now in the us it would take me more than 45 minutes just to walk to the closest grocery store so if i wanted to walk to the grocery store i would have to walk up this big hill and continue walking up the hill but as we continue walking up the hill we soon come to our first obstacle the crosswalk is closed so if we follow the rules and don't cross the road right here we continue just walking down this sidewalk right and now we come to our second problem the sidewalk closes and there is no crosswalk so we crossed have been walking and now we come to our next issue the sidewalk ends yet again so now we just have to walk in the road because there's no sidewalks on either side and at this point i'm still 20 minutes away from the nearest grocery store and i think one thing i miss about latin american countries and i guess uruguay more specifically is the sense of community in uruguay every week in every neighborhood there is a fruit and vegetable market you can go buy fresh produce support local farms and see your neighbors and there was a real sense of community and a feeling of bliss being able to do that [Music] but here in my hometown there is one farmers market once a week and it's a whole different experience it's like half fruit and vegetable stands and half random stands but going to a market any day of the week is something i miss but in general people here are used to having way less time i feel like everyone is always rushing and half the time they don't even know why it's hard to take things slow and enjoy being with people here and that's a real cultural difference that i feel like a lot of the time does go unnoticed [Music] so all this to say that it's strange being back in a place that's supposed to feel like home i grew up here and i have so many memories here i have friends and i've lived the majority of my life here but now all that feels so far from who i am today that life i live to no longer feels like one that i want so many people here are told that they need to work harder push themselves more do more but what is all that work doing for us for you is it the goal of your life to put perpetual economic growth above self-development i mean just look at what that's done to our planet to me joy and learning are the most important things in life i want to experience as much joy as possible and maybe that's why the life i lived here seemed so far moved from who i am now when i come here the culture seems so different the people are so different it's like everyone is trying to get ahead no one partakes in real leisure and this is just my perspective but work is so ingrained in the culture that people often judge you for partaking in leisure hobbies or even not prioritizing work it's so strange to me now but for so long i even viewed that as normal i mean you can't even spend time in most places without spending money parks closed at sunset there's not many places to sit and even if you could it's not really in our culture to sit in a park we even have loitering laws prohibiting people from literally being in a place without a purpose latin american countries on the other hand are filled with plazas public spaces that are meant for people to spend time with each other they don't close and it's very common to hang out in them [Music] people sit on the street and talk they can sit outside and just be together and not being able to do that here was shocking and i feel like it does limit what i can do now this isn't to say that uruguayan culture is without flaws that the things i've let out here are perfect but what i think it does show is how i've been able to grow and see beyond what i was taught as a child and i'm so much happier for it living and traveling to other countries meeting new people and exploring has really shown me what life could look like and not not every part of the world is like this things can be different [Music] i feel like i've learned so much from being exposed to new cultures talking to people from other countries and learning their perspectives on life how their lives in their home countries were and all that has really gotten me thinking how much of our worldview how much of who we are comes from our homes how much of what you like your tastes your world view your politics how much of that would be different if the place of your upbringing was different with all that in mind then the thought of living in other countries surrounded by new kinds of people new types of life is something we all should do and seeing the world in new ways should be something we all strive to do and traveling to all these countries has helped me realize the type of life that i want to live the things that i want to prioritize we are all arguably shaped by society by our cultures we are all consciously or subconsciously taught what to prioritize how to live how we should dress but who are we outside of that what about in other countries where society culture customs are all different who are you there or more importantly who could you be there our beliefs can change so much so fast just by seeing how our lives can be different somewhere else that we don't have to be the way society tells us and i don't think i've ever really resonated with the culture of the us and after leaving i've discovered how much more joyful profound and interesting my life could be so much of my life has changed so fast but at the same time i feel like i'm more me than ever and even though i feel like i don't really have a conventional home anymore in every new city i go to i feel more at home with myself and closer to being somebody that i've always wanted to be it is not my goal to have the most money the nicest car or the coolest clothes i don't want to care what people think about me but when i'm here i feel like people don't care to hear what i have to say they don't want to have discussions about the world and our place in it and i think that's an important part of life discourse is how we grow as people but i feel like everything is a competition here who has the nicest things the best job who has the biggest house and i think that's bad for many reasons but the main one being is where do all those things get you the ancient stoics talked about how comfort makes us slaves that once we have comfort and commodities that we're slaves to them that we will do everything in our power to keep them and never stop wanting more and i think that's something we should all keep in mind especially nowadays with flex culture of showing off the nicest things you have it's good for all of us to remember that even if we could afford things like that it probably wouldn't add any real value to our lives and if anything it would lead us down a path that we don't want to be on i don't want to act like i have all the answers like i know everything but i want to say that what i do know is i can't distract myself away from realities of what living in this country means there are far far too many negatives and at some point it all just becomes too much and that's not even diving into the deep stuff so that was today's video i hope that you enjoyed i've kind of had a lot of what i said in the video on my mind for a long time and when i found out i was coming back to the us i thought it'd be a great time to put it all into a video and i was really kind of shocked when i first got back and realized all the things that i kind of forgot about so i hope you enjoyed the video i know i had a fun time editing it and if you did enjoy the video make sure to like and subscribe thank you you

Channel: Tristan Martin

Views: 5,596

Keywords: Travel, Reverse culture shock

Id: s8h7lGUa73o

Length: 8min 50sec (530 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2022