Why you should think really hard before relocating for Study/Job

Less than 10% of the population actually lives in metro cities in India. For villagers like me, it’s clear that we often need to leave home for education or a job. Depending on our life stage, we face choices: stay home for a local university and a low-paying job, or venture out for better education and higher-paying work. For us Indians, it’s especially complex because of our strong family ties and the bonds we form from childhood.

This blog is about my journey of leaving home for education and work. Now, I find myself once again on the brink of leaving home for a better job. Writing about this experience not only helps me but may also assist others who are making or will make similar decisions.

Having new experiences

I left my home in my late teens and entered a metro city where I had zero connections: Hyderabad. Being an awkward introverted village boy, it felt like a massive shock, akin to Hiroshima. Somehow, though, I survived. It opened my eyes to something new beyond my dinky little world. Although just a couple of months weren’t enough to change my perspective entirely, they showed me how broad I needed to be to understand the world better. This realization motivated me (and brought a certain excitement) to meet new people.

I thought, what better place to find badass people than Mumbai for the next four years of university? Mumbai gave me so much. Perhaps it was my age, but it also gave me a sense of freedom and a unique viewpoint. I encountered a multitude of smart individuals and learned a great deal about myself. Those few years completely transformed me from the inside out. If given the chance, I would gladly relive those moments again.

Loneliness felt by millions

Obviously, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows; sometimes I felt lonely. Not because I was alone, but because I was away from that feeling of ‘home’. This isn’t just my experience; there are literally millions of students and professionals who relocate for studies within India and have felt the same loneliness.

But there’s a reward to this suffering. When you’re not in your comfort zone, when you’re not with someone you know, you have to be with yourself all the time. You have to look inward to make sense of all this chaos. This is important; otherwise, you’ll lose yourself.

Rewards of getting out of Comfort Zone

To avoid feeling lonely, it’s important to connect with others. And to make those connections, finding common ground is key. Hobbies, interests, sports—there are many ways to discover shared interests. Often, when we’re in our comfort zone or stuck in a routine, we lose sight of our hobbies or interests. But when making connections becomes a priority, we need to unearth those forgotten passions. Some people reinvent their interests, while others discover entirely new ones. This is precisely what “jiggling more” can bring into your life—it introduces you to things you wouldn’t have expected from yourself!

But what about intrinsic jiggling? What about intrinsic values? When you are surrounded by people and try too hard to fit in, most of the time you fall for the conformity bias.

Conformity Bias

Conformity bias doesn’t have an age limit, but it’s especially noticeable among teenagers. This isn’t just because of their psychology but also their brain development (scientific source). When I was in my late teens and in college, it wasn’t just me trying to fit in; my brain was rewarding me for not thinking outside the box. I regret some decisions I made during that time, like choosing optional subjects and deciding which tech stack to learn (although I managed to improve by learning some maths). These choices have had a lasting impact on my career path and the way I think, almost permanently.

I might be super wrong here (and I hope I am). But after meeting a subset of the population, I feel like Indians have a slave mentality. “Hey, need a job? Learn this, get good scores, master a few things, and boom! Hey, want a raise? Grind your ass off on some random website, go through cheat sheets, and boom!” What happens next is they get a ton of money and elusive respect for conforming, and then they start considering themselves as badass ninjas who have hacked life while others are still struggling. In reality, though, they never look inside to discover what they truly like or what their interests are. They don’t try to convert their interests into something that can fill their belly and add value to the world. Instead, they find what are seen as good value propositions in the world and try to mold themselves accordingly, leaving their inner curiosity and fulfillment almost empty.

Gain-Loss Paradox

As with everything else in life, there’s a gain-loss curve here. If we live outside our comfort zone, alone with strangers, there’s a good chance we’ll encounter interesting personalities who challenge our beliefs and force us to look inward. But there’s also a chance of getting lost in the weeds of conformity—just accepting the world as it is and always trying to fit in. This often leads to a life of misery.

To balance things out, I have a term: ‘comfortable discomfort’. Comfortable discomfort is the discomfort that you are willing to accept. If you want a good body, you have to experience (physical) comfortable discomfort by going to the gym regularly and enduring physical pain, but not so uncomfortable that you might fracture a bone or muscle. If you want to ease the pain of a breakup (with your girlfriend/boyfriend), you have to face (emotional) comfortable discomfort by sitting down and accepting that they have gone forever, but not so uncomfortable that you blame yourself for everything and ruminate over it for weeks or even months.

You’ve got the idea; generally speaking, comfortable discomfort always leads to a better and improved life. But as a human, there’s just a finite amount of comfortable discomfort you can handle at a time. Ideally, you would experience a balanced amount of physical and emotional discomfort, but nobody is ideal, and there’s no gauge that measures these things. So there’s always a deviation within these aspects. The graph below might help illustrate this.

Balancing Discomfort

Here are some things I’ve learned from living away from home: how to stand my ground, how to defend my opinions, and how to listen to my intuition amidst all the noise of external validation. Sure, I’m not yet a master at these things, but now I know not to blindly follow advice like “get out of your comfort zone” from someone who’s been comfortably situated all their life, fulfilling social obligations.

It also made me realize, having a home brings the greatest happiness in life. Whether it’s people, parents, a partner, or even a pet, they bring more joy than any other relationship.

But it’s good to seek discomfort. It’s beneficial for both personal and professional life to meet new people. As someone who lives in a rural part of India, I may not have as much choice in life to make a living by doing what I like, especially from my own home (maybe, I can do Work From Home). But for those who have this privilege, they must think really hard before leaving home. What are you willing to lose in this phase of life: comfort or exploration?

Thanks for reading!