saffaleavingoz

Curious whether you've made a decision yet?

Hi SaffaInLondon You'd be surprised how many people have had similar experiences, believe me you're not alone. Whatever you choose to do make sure that you're doing it for you and not someone else's idea of what life could be like. That includes my views. I often found that I was influenced subconsciously by family and friends who would say simple things like "I wish I could go to oz, I hear its paradise and the photos of the beaches in the travel mag looks amazing" etc. strange as it may sound. That positive message actually made me think "yeah, we're lucky and we'd be stupid to not do it". other than that, don't burn any bridges in your work you hate. You never know who you'll need to call on if you decide to go back to the UK. We're planning for a June move.

Thank you for sharing such a personal story. I believe that it will help many in the future to think twice about their decisions. Even though my situation is the opposite, wanting to leave Aus because I'm unhappy, your story does make me consider the happiness of my wife and children and their wants and needs. Your chance to turn things around are always there. Most people get second and third and fourth chances at situations like this.

I'm sorry. Reading my post, I come off as a whinging Saffa. That was not the intention. It was just to offer you a different view of Aus which I thought would help you understand that Aus is not all it's cut out to be. We were happy where we were and we threw it away because of a rough patch we hit and we decided to follow our emotions instead of fact.

I don't seem to be able to count. Fact 3, Fact 3, Fact 4, Fact 4, etc. etc.

Dear SaffaInLondon I'm also a South African, living in Aus (Melbourne) for 7 years. I've been in the same boat many many times, i.e. should we stay or should we go, etc. The "we" is my wife, two children and I. It seems that the more options you have, the more difficult it is to make a decision, especially on something that is life changing. We're preparing to leave Aus for the UK. My advice will be biased towards saying that you should think twice about moving to Aus. Unfortunately taking bias out of an answer is almost impossible for almost everyone. And I've also seen in your posts that you're very happy in London. You'll never find utopia. So if you're very happy, then that's enough reason to stay put and enjoy your life. You have something that many people lose through bad decisions based on emotions and not fact. My reasons are based on my own views. Fact 1. You live a heck of a lot closer to SA now than you would being in Aus. Even in Perth. It costs us around $7,000-$9,000 dollars on flight tickets to travel at a decent time of year from Melbourne to Cape Town to see family and old friends. Then there is the spending money, which is another $2,000-$4,000 for a 2-4 week stay. Granted, this is with family in tow, but if you do the math, you'll see that it's very expensive to travel from Aus to SA for a holiday. Fact 2. The time zone between Aus and SA is a killer. You'll spend about a week recovering from jet lag in SA, unless you're one of the lucky ones that take a couple of days. With us, that takes one third of our holiday away from us because we can't enjoy family and friends when we're all walking zombies. Also, we can't just pick up the phone or Skype whenever we want. We have to wait and time our comms to SA. It's normally late evening here, and mid morning/late afternoon in SA. You really are at the arse end of the world here. Fact 3. All cities in Aus suffer from a small town mentality, including the big centers Melbourne and Sydney. Which on London and New York standards are quite small in the first place. They also have the added issue of tall poppy syndrome. It is very very rife here. Funny enough I haven't seen that in the smaller rural towns, but it's all over the place in the cities. Australian workplaces are the most frustrating I've ever encountered. In general, Aussies are lazy and self-obsessed. Which is why I hire mainly foreigners. The work ethic is non existent. Fact 3. London is one of the greatest cities on the planet. The diversity and acceptance of other cultures and the integration that's possible is second to none. Not so in Aus. In general, Aussies don't like foreigners. And you'll always be a foreigner if you don't speak with an Aussie accent. Fact 4. There are a LOT more opportunities in the UK and the rest of Europe for work and business. I've just come back from a four week business trip to London, and I can't believe the opportunities I see there when I compare it to the economic prospects in Aus. Aus is living on borrowed time. I own an IT consultancy in Mlebourne, specializing in erp deployment. Fact 4. Although you know this already, and I'm only saying this because I got a sense that you want to capture some of your old days in SA in Aus, Australia is nothing like South Africa. Not in culture. Not in diversity. Not in climate. Yes, the sun shines here far more than in the UK. Similar to SA. But it's not the same. It burns. It's not friendly sun like in SA or the Mediterranean. I'm Italian-South African, and I have an olive complexion. I burn in Aus. Not in SA. My kids can't enjoy a day out in the sun like they do in SA.T Fact 5. There is no such thing as ubuntu in Aus as you find in SA. That sense of compassion and togetherness. You won't find that here. UK has more of this than Aus. Fact 6. Australia is a VERY insular society. They can't see anything past their own borders. It's also a nanny state that puts the UK to shame. Growing up in SA, we all had a very real sense of the world and our place in it. You don't have that in Aus. Fact 7. In Aus, it's all about the beautiful people and sports. Aus doesn't really have a defining culture. And a European-type appreciation for the arts, history, science, comedy, etc. and similar passions that we foreign-born people have, are lost on most Aussies. Fact 8. Australia is probably more safe than the UK. Fact 9. Life in Aus for me has been soul destroying. It's a personal fact I know, but you have to consider that life in Aus just won't match up with life in the UK. There are a lot more things but these come to mind. I know they're based on my own bias, but I also recognize some things in your posts that I have gone through before. And if I have stayed put in the country I was happy in, things may have been different. One of the most unsettling things I've encountered is that everyone "back home" seems to have just got on with their lives and tried to eek out every bit of enjoyment from their lives as they could. We, the priviledged ones, with Italian and South African and Aussie passports, seem to be the ones not able to enjoy life because we can't make a decision and stick with it. We have too many choices. And we can't settle. I don't think you want to leave London. I think that you have a picture in your head of what life in Aus could be like. But I promise you, that picture is 99.99999% flawed. Don't make the mistake of chasing the wind.