Change
is a great phenomenon in life and it makes life interesting. It enhances your
learning process and challenges your abilities in so many ways. Relocation is
one of a big kind of changes. You get out of your comfort zone and then create
a new comfort zone and routines. If you are not experienced in dealing with the
process, the transition period becomes really long. I have a lot of experience
of it until now, since last year I have relocated four times. Once between two
countries, once between two cities and twice in the same city. But every time I
relocate, it brings different challenges. In this post I will reflect upon my
recent relocation to Fagersta in Sweden. And compare it with my previous
experiences.
I
still remember that when I moved out of my parents’ house for the first time
from a city near the capital of Pakistan to the largest city of Pakistan in the
south, I did not accept the change for at least one year. I was just 17 and
almost every second day I thought of moving back. But after that year I never
wanted to go back to the city where I was living before. The second biggest
change was moving from Pakistan to Sweden. It took me around 6 months to get
comfortable with the environment.
It
is challenging because you might be mentally prepared for it, but your behavioral
change takes a while, it holds you back and tries to make you realize that the
past was better. There are some factors that can facilitate the change process,
for example it is easier if it is collective. If you relocate to a place, where
there are a lot of people are going through the same process. Exchange studies
is a perfect example of that, you can meet a lot of people who relocate to a
new place, facing similar challenges and have similar goals and you can talk to
them about, what you are experiencing. The other factor that facilitates the
change process is the receiving group of people, environment or city. For
example if you relocate to a place where you already know people who are there
to welcome and engage you in the local society. The third factor is your
interests and hobbies, if the place you relocate to have the things to offer
that you want to do, then it is not a big deal. The fourth factor that
facilitates your relocation is experience. If you are aware of the challenges
of relocation, you can get settled in a few weeks. The last but not the least
is flexibility, if you are rigid in your behavior, than it will be yourself
that will make you a looser in relocation process.
Settlement
is a big knowledge area; there is a lot of relocation in the world due to studies,
work, relations or wars. I have seen some companies in Norway that provide the
services for settlement of employees from other countries or cities into their
city of work and the employers pays heavy fees to these companies. The local
governments in many cities have the settlement plans as well, but their target
group can be different based on the needs of the country. And the resource
allocation is done accordingly. The universities and student unions play an
important role in settle of new students as well. And the local businesses do a
lot of marketing in the cities where the immigration rate is higher to keep
their business running. Anyways that is my observations and learning, there
might be a lot of other prospects and factors as well related to relocation and
settlement.
Finally me and Fagersta.
I have relocated to Fagersta one month ago and I can claim that I have got
settled now. My life by than has changed a lot. But it was a hard work, it was
costly and it required a lot of flexibility.
Fagersta
is a really small town in Vastmanslands County in eastern part of Sweden, at
almost one hour drive from Vasteras (The fifth largest city of Sweden) 1.5 hour
drive from Uppsala (The fourth largest city of Sweden) And two hour drive from
Stockholm (The capital and largest city of Sweden). It has an amazing nature
around, beautiful lakes, small hills a lot of forest. It is an industrialized city
and almost more than 2000 people travel to Fagersta from other cities to work.
There are a couple of gyms in the city, two big sports facilities and many
pizzerias and small restaurants.
For
me the working life experience has been really exciting, but the social life
became a big challenge. First challenge alone was that I was the only one who
relocated to this city. It is much smaller than the cities I have lived before.
There was no public transport or easy commuting facilities in the region. Most
of my colleagues come from other cities. After work there are not many things
of my interest in around. Most of my activities in my previous city were group activities.
I was not comfortable being alone. And I used to spend very less time at home
and I have been outdoors in nature by myself. The biggest challenge was the
availability of internet. I am addicted to it. Since I had to change my
apartment and there was no internet offer available for one month. I have been
to all telecom operators in the region.
How
did I cope with it? In start I was just
going to shopping centers in the region around to buy stuff for the apartment. I
started searching for the events and the people with common interests. I tried
to contact so many people in the cities around especially international
students and their activities. In case of people, my previous contacts helped
me only. I attended a few events. Since I am a fan of traveling, therefore it
was on the top priority during weekends. I have been to Sandviken, Falun, Hedemora,
Gävle, Sundsvall, Umeå, Borås, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Vasteras (many times) and
Uppsala during the month of March. The weekends were perfect. I met many old
friends during this period. Some of them introduced me to their local friends
and it was an overwhelming experience and I am really thankful to all of these
people I met during this settlement period.
I
also realized that traveling all the time makes it less interesting and why not
try some other things in parallel. So I have started swimming, a little bit of
workout at the gym, outdoor walks around the lakes, cooking, staying in touch
with all the amazing people I have met in my life. My future plans are to start
watching movies and TV series, get back to online gaming after many many years
of pause, cycling, reading some books, blogging and travel much more and build
or become a part of a community of common interests in the region. I have many
ideas about them. I will write about them in future. Thanks for reading and
please reflect or share your thoughts on this post.
