L'Etranger

I have lived here in the US for six years. Nowhere else could I have gone from working a cash register in a local McDonald's to a great position with a corporate banking firm in that time frame. I have more than tripled my net income, graduated from college and secured a LEGAL working visa. All these things, these great things, so coveted by other international people in my position...but at such a price.

Of all the places I have lived in, the US has been home for the longest and it will be the least memorable. This place is simply my office and my school. I can only say that I have met less than a handful of people here whom I will hold close to in my life, and even fewer that I will remain in contact with within the next three to five years. The experiences I have had here have not impacted my personal, spiritual and inner growth. In fact, I would say that since I have been here I have lost touch with a lot of who I was. That is the price I paid to get to where I am now.

One could argue that I did not make enough of an effort to assimilate. On the contrary I have a significant amount of friends in the US that are spread accross the country. There is not one weekend I am not invited to some sort of gathering. There seems to be a stigma that if you are not enjoying yourself or finding yourself a stranger in a different place, that you must not have friends or know people or the right people. I know a lot of people, from drug dealers to CEOs. All the wrong and right people. My point is the obsession here with oneself has watered down the quality of friendships and interaction. Perhaps that is the wrong approach. Let me re-phrase. The culture of self-interest has created an atmosphere of success and great oppertunity despite the high cost of less human compassion and the inability to consider another's position. I myself was a part of this atmosphere.

The problem is not this fact, this is the US and I accept it for what it is. This blog is not being created to critisize the US, in fact it is to document the hardships of my realizations. Over the past few months I underwent a re-introduction to who I really am and what I gave up. I had to become someone else in order to assimilate and become successful here. By realizing these things I have made myself a stranger in this countrty. After all the challenges of getting to where I am, after having assimilated, and after six years of thinking this was what I had always wanted; I made it. Now I want out....

Je suis étranger dans ma nouvelle maison.