Hello,

how are you?

I thought I will talk about emigration. I wanted to make a separate post about it long time ago but I didn’t. Why I wanted to talk about it? For some reason people think it is easy. Especially those who stay in one country and don’t change anything, they assume emigration is awesome. Well, it is not.

I wanna do plusses and minuses about emigration. Will start from negative points.

Before starting I will explain my situation. I came to UK to study. For one year Master’s degree. My plans were to come back to my native country. Unexpectedly, I met my boyfriend here and I stayed.

Minuses of emigration: (I have quite a lot of them)

• Your family and friends are far away. Yes, this one hurts me the most as you realise you won’t be able meet your people whenever you want. There’s gonna be a huge distance between you and people who were next to you before. Of course, you can call each other even video calls, but it is different than meeting in person. This gets hella difficult when you going through bad experiences and you understand there is nobody there to help you or listen to you.

• You must to get to know all the legal requirements to live in the country, set up a bank, insurances, visa or any other settlements, find a job, register to doctor and etc. For me it was easier as I came to study, university helped me to sort out a lot of things. But people I know who came just to work, to get all requirements was far more complicated.

• You need to get used to this country culture and traditions. Although, it might seem strange why I put this into the minuses, but truth is emigrants do get a cultural shock. No matter where you go, countries have differences and you need to learn them and adapt. Also, not to forget your own culture and values. You must tolerate the country culture and later it becomes a big plus as you can better understand how other people live but at the beginning, like, for a few years it is difficult. For example, what I hate in UK, that people smoke weed a lot and you can smell it on the streets, I cannot tolerate this smell at all, but I need to get used to it.

• You are not valued here the same as you would in your native land. Sadly, but obviously, all countries prefer their own people than foreigners. I was not suprised by that and I completely get it. The only minus is that you need to lower your standarts and expectations and you actually need to fight to get what you deserved. Which is kind of a good point too as you realize how little you are and not that important as you may thought you are.

• Other emigrants (most of the times) are selfish, rude and not gonna help you at all. Do not trust them. Yeah, experienced it myself. Emigrants are gonna do worse for you because they actually fight to stay in this country. Which I don’t like and I hate, but nothing I can change. I can only show my own perspective and example that we don’t need to be rude to be able to get what we want and that everybody can get their space underneath the sun.

• Share houses. Kind of similar to the point of emigrants as usually native people don’t live in share houses, but I don’t understand this logic. We have only shared flats in Lithuania (at least I haven’t heard people sharing a house) and flats are better for renting than a house. Not to mention the council taxes which are so high. Share houses have gardens, people make parties, loud music, barbecue. Literally, the other day we couldn’t sleep till 2 am as somebody decided to listen music on speakers… Call a police? yeah but how I should know which house is having music if it is not next doors neighbour? Overall, share houses have a lot of problems in terms how they made or how they are sorted out. To live separately is extremely expensive.

• You struggle here with everything – finances, jobs, health, people, home and there is nobody to help you. Then it gets depressing and sooo messed up. I won’t go to details, but again it is a fight everyday with everything which makes you tired.

• Ok, this point only applies for Covid-19 pandemic and those who decided to emigrate at this time. Ha.. I cannot even begin to explain how terrible it was to come to another country just to sit in between 4 walls not being able to go anywhere and not to meet anybody + sort out all legal requirements + study… I was crying (still I am crying a lot) all the time, sometimes I drank alcohol a lot by myself as I couldn’t handle. Honestly, I am proud I got out of this depression but mainly thanks to my boyfriend (we will get there). If not him I would have left UK after few months.

• No motivation. I don’t know if it is just me who struggles here with motivation but I never had this problem in my native country. Quite opposite everything was motivating me in Lithuania. Here, it’s just one fail after another fail, bad memories after bad memories. I am fighting with myself and I am trying to find something that keeps me going, but it is not easy.

• Much more people live here, different nationalities and different perspectives + accents.. Okay, this point is minus and plus. Why it is a minus? Because again you need to get used to this variety, tolerate this variety and understand all the people. You need to be open-minded, otherwise you’re screwed up. Accents. Oh boy, I thought I know English, coming here made me realise I truly don’t. I really struggle with accents and I struggle to talk myself especially when I need to juggle between lithuanian and english. Of course this point is a big plus too as it makes you better person, you learn a lot and you can meet so many interesting people!!

Thanks for reading first part. 😀 but let’s finish it with positive notes:

• Usually native people aka British people are friendly and understands you. If you get to know them and appreciate their country and explain why you chose this country they will greet you and help you out. No matter which country you are in, get to know its citizens and people who created this country. You will show some respect and they will treat you the same. Forget where you came from and focus where you are right now.

• Emigration improves you as a person from all points of view. It taughts you lessons and makes you understand life better. This experience you won’t get anywhere else.

• It helps if you find boyfriend and girlfriend here. As I mentioned I met my boyfriend and if it not for him I wouldn’t stay here. He made me believe in myself and helped to sort out my struggles. Of course no house without some anger or disagreements :DDD but as long as you find person you enjoy spending time with and they make you feel good that is a reason to stay where you are.

• Being here improved my language. Honestly, it is even interesting to compare how my knowledge of english changed and I’m happy about it as I always wanted to learn it better. I still need a lot of improvements but I’m going there.

• Money are better here than my native country. It is what it is but you can survive here better. You can afford having a proper life here. In Lithuania me and my mum struggled with money all the time, especially when I was in teenage years. My country government should give more support for single mothers and overall should support people living there. Believe it or not a lot of Lithuanians left my country (there was 3 million of us, now there is only 2,8) and people keep leaving.

• UK has plenty beautiful places to visit, cities to see. So much potential to explore and to enjoy! As well from UK you can literally go almost anywhere, best location to live at the moment.

Of course you noticed there are far more minuses than plusses, but I believe you need to struggle first before you can enjoy it. After struggles we better appreciate things and better understand things.

If you are thinking about emigration, do it. Yes yes yes. Do it. Just mentally prepare – it won’t be easy. Moreover, it will be difficult as hell. But it is worth it.

xxx

Egle