Let's be honest...

I am scared. I want to put this out there and try to work out my feelings. I am SCARED! I have always dreamed of living and working in another country, and now it is so close within my grasp and I am panicking. And I am not sure why. There are so many things going through my head: will I fit in, will I be able to learn the language, will I make any friends, will they pay me enough to even survive over there and pay off my student loans, how will I get enough patients? The one thing that I am certain of is that I have a very solid foundation of clinical skills (thanks to my VA hospital internship), so I am not worried about helping people get better.  I am having doubts whether or not this is even a good idea; the money issue always seems to come to the top when making big decisions. While my other classmates are preparing to open their own practices or maybe work for someone else for a year or two, working to save money, here I am talking about packing up everything and moving to a country by myself, working for up to 5 years as an associate in a profession where the older ones have been known to eat their young, which is where we come back to the money issue. Have I lost my mind? Should I be more practical??

“Excellence can be obtained if you:
...care more than others think is wise;
...risk more than others think is safe;
...dream more than others think is practical;
...expect more than others think is possible.”

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Take a few deep breaths, calm down, and think for a minute. You have the chance to live and work in another country, learn a new language, experience a new culture. YES, it will be difficult at first, but you already know that, but the experience you will gain from this opportunity will be worth it! As for the money, work hard, do the best that you can, and I believe that everything will work itself out. If I don’t do this, if I don’t try, I will always look back and wonder, what if? Could I have done that? I will hate myself for not trying, for taking the easy way, the safe way, the comfortable way out.