Reinvention

People relocate their lives for many reasons. For some, it's simply for a new job. For others, a new environment offers the chance to find an ill-defined 'something' in life that has previously eluded them: it's the opportunity to be the person you'd always wanted to be. For me, moving to the States is primarily to broaden my career, although I suspect a sprinkling of the latter is also true.

Moving abroad is an opportunity to start fresh. It's a clean slate ready to be painted in whatever shade you desire. You can reinvent how you wish to be viewed by others and leave behind tired routines and bad habits. It seems a nice romantic ideal and I wonder how much of it is true. Of course this will be true for certain people like refugees, but what about for people like me who move between first-world countries?

Although a new continent may offer the opportunity for reinvention, can one simply find the unfulfilled aspects of their life in a new city? Most probably not. I suspect it's more the case of "different shit, same smell".

At my stage in life, a persons personality is already hardwired into set patterns of thought and behaviour, and to positively change this thinking is a slow and difficult process for the most part. Living elsewhere may influence certain perceptions, but is it enough of a catalyst for the self-reinvention process such that the happiness which has eluded someone in their native country is found in their new home? I wish this was the case but I doubt it.

I've moved to Boston with few expectations. For me, it's not about reinvention, although I'm taking this period of change as a chance to re-examine the spiritual aspect of my life. No, I'm not talking about religion, but the spirituality of being at peace with yourself, being content with the past and accepting of an uncertain future.

It's not reinvention that I seek, but reinvigoration.