Make Mistakes

When you are starting out in any sort of unfamiliar situation, you’re bound to get things wrong. Often spectacularly wrong. But each time this happens, what you’re giving yourself is a gift. A mistake is an opportunity for learning, and the larger the mistake, the less likely you are to repeat it.

Maybe you’re going out for dinner, but you take a wrong turn on the way and end up discovering a whole new area you’ve never been to before. Or maybe you misunderstand the waiter and order something completely different and it turns out to be delicious. Or terrible! Either way you’ve learned something useful.

Recently I came across an article about an American student in London who accidentally boarded the wrong boat and found himself amongst a huge party of supporters for the lower-tier English soccer team Southend. It’s a wonderful story, as instead of ruining his day, the student leaned into the experience and is now a full-fledged fan of the club himself. These types of things can happen frequently when you’re an expat, and to me they are a delight every time they happen.

Part of becoming an expat is an exercise in relinquishing (the illusion of) control. So many things will be new, and you have to make peace with a steep learning curve. But if you approach every twist as a learning opportunity instead of as a sign that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, you’ll get a lot more out of the experience.

To not do that would be…a mistake.