thekristydave

If we go there will be trouble. But if we stay, it will be double?

Our life has suddenly turned into a Clash song. And really, this indecision is bugging me. Maybe you can help?

Kristy unexpectedly got a job offer here. The job itself is not as much a factor as is the viable opportunity it opens for us to stay in this incredible place for the long-term. Why wouldn’t we take it?

Well, there are lots of reasons actually, both for and against staying.

The Case for Going Back Home

We miss our family and friends back home, most obviously. That emotional aspect cannot be overstated. There’s also the not so insignificant matter of my professional path, which isn’t exactly blazing ahead out here.

Buying property, starting a family of our own, building the general financial groundwork for a secure future – these pragmatic goals are all certainly possible out here, just more difficult to reach than back home. This goes beyond any language barrier, which can be lessened with time. To a very real extent, we’ll always be outsiders in this country where being “in” is really the only way to get a fair shake (isn’t that true everywhere?).

Plus, we still call the US (and New York) “home.” That obviously means something.

Why We Should Stay

Honestly, is America still the land of better opportunity? The economy being what it is (we can hear that loud sucking noise, all the way from across the distance!), prosperity is not necessarily guaranteed back home.

We don’t exactly have all the dots lined up on where we’d live, finding jobs… nothing is really very certain after we get off the plane, actually. In many ways, we left our old lives nearly two years ago, and we’d be starting over from scratch anywhere we go.

Instead, we could keep building on the life and friendships (surrogate family, really) we’ve started out here. We could live on this beautiful Greek island – live a simple life, where people know the difference between working to live and living to work. No consumption-driven, rushed, workaday commuter life for us here. Yet most assuredly, life would stay very interesting.

Vote Our Future

We’ve exhausted more than a few pros and cons lists to no avail. Practical reasoning is at war with emotions and ideals, and the result is a stalemate. We are quite literally stuck between two places.

In short: we need some help. Third-party input. Yours! So come on and let me know…

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Disclaimer: We retain the right to make a final decision regardless of any popular results. Feel free to make your arguments in the comments below. All views are appreciated. Seriously, though, TheKristyDave is not a democracy. Well, we are but we’re strictly a two-party system.