Noah Durham: Sometimes the Grass Truly is Greener
“ Aren't you scared of being knifed over there?”
“Aren’t you scared of being shot over here?” I say.
“Well, here I can defend myself.”, my Dad retorts.
“That’s really not the point.”, I try to argue, but my response falls on deaf ears that have long ago made up their stubborn mind.
Fear of the unknown is ignorance, plain and simple. However, it seemed to be the normal reaction to my studying abroad. News that I had previously been ecstatic about sharing soon began to spike my nerves at the thought of having to tell even one more person. I was so tired of the same brainwashed reaction, even if it was out of a place of kindness that feared for my safety. I had no idea that not wanting to settle down and have the American dream of living and dying in the same town you were born in would be such a touchy subject.
Unfortunately, this feeling started to eat away at my brash immunity to fear about living in another country for four months and anxiety set in. I began to worry about everything that could go wrong rather than what could go right. I truly began to fear if I would come back the same person as when I left. In retrospect, that was such a silly thing to fear when it is a much more terrifying thought to stay the same forever.
So, I dug in my heels and prepared for whatever and whoever would come my way. I left myself open to any possibilities, doing my best to not give in to the fear that had been instilled in me since I was a child. I had no idea that the conversation that would truly shift my perspective would be in a dingy tattoo parlor looking up at the Acropolis in Athens during my two week solo trip to Greece.
My Tattoo artist Theo was a very interesting man. He regaled me with the details from his plethora of adventures from one side of Europe to the other from Iceland to Italy.
“Yeah man I've been all over living in different countries for about 1-2 years each.”
“Wow. How did you manage that?”, I said, feeling more than a little jealous of the life this man had already lived being only 31.
“I just felt a calling to go out and explore the world. I wanted to get to know as many cultures as possible before I had to settle down.”
As he rambled on, I began to think to myself how he had a positive experience no matter the gap of their difference. He spoke about each country in such a manner of respect for each culture. He did not think his culture was inherently superior like every American Nationalist does. That was when our differences really clicked for me as to why Americans are so scared of traveling and why my friends and family were scared for me.
Americans fear the unknown for the sake of it being unknown. Theo’s only worries while traveling had been genuine issues with his safety and being robbed because tourists are often the targets for petty theft. He was not concerned but rather embraced the difference in any culture he experienced as an appreciative participant. He did not try to emanate his own country’s false superiority, pushing others to think he was obviously from the best country. Instead, he acknowledged each other country’s innate importance to what makes each country unique.
For many people raised in the south and in America in general that perspective is quite a switch from that strong, stubborn, and almost aggressive faith we are to have in our country. Additionally, we are not only to have faith in our country but feel that we are the most superior country in the world. According to many statistics on world rankings, America is far from superior. To put this into perspective, in 2021 America ranked above Syria and Afghanistan while being just below Iraq on the amount of intentional homicides per 100,000 people with no other economic powerhouse seen anywhere near them on the list. (Loudon, 2024)
The same people that were born and raised in America were worried about me being stabbed for simply being in another country. Statistically, I am less safe in a school in America from gun violence than I am in the middle of London. Additionally, while in the UK gun violence only accounts for 4% of all homicides, in the USA, it accounts for over 70%. What a staggering difference. One would think that those stats would make us Americans a bit more humble about our “great” country. Instead, we consistently insist on our superiority and use our freedoms to back that up. Those same laws that used to make us free are now just tools to oppress people again. American Colonization did not end in the late 1700’s; It simply transitioned to trying to claim the mind of each and every American.
Small talk between a customer and a tattoo artist may normally seem trivial. However, his experienced open mind combined with conversations I had before I had even gone on my trip induced a major perspective shift. America had felt safe and familiar as I was comfortable with all of the good parts of it and had grown accustomed to all of the rotted parts like so many others. Now, I dreaded even the thought of returning not wanting to go back to a life that now felt suffocating.
However, unless I found someone to marry me for a green card in my remaining time, I had very little hope of avoiding my return. In opposition to the reality of my situation, I embraced the inevitability of my return home and began to plan my return back. The one taste of how beautiful it was to embrace other cultures for everything they are had left me wanting more. I applied for grad schools in England once again being accepted to a few and finally settling on the University of Southampton.
If you would have told me before I studied abroad that I would be desperate to return to Europe to live there full-time, I would have laughed in your face. However, here I am a new person with a thirst to explore the unknown and see all of what the world has to offer.
Noah Durham is a Business Administration major with an emphasis in Financial Services and a minor in International Business. He did his breakaway for a semester at Winchester University and plans to return to the UK for his Master in Business Analytics and Finance at the University of Southampton after graduating in May of 2025.