You Must Move Abroad To Reach Your Full Biological Potential

The body codes new proteins and makes you better at adapting to unknown situations when you leave your country.

Someday in 2020, I decided I wouldn't feel fulfilled unless I moved out of my hometown, Cartagena. The city is small and does not have an entrepreneurial or intellectual scene. All you can find is humidity and heat.

Most importantly, I didn't feel like I was becoming more social, competent, or confident at the rate I could. So I moved abroad and found out I was right. If you have lived in the same country your whole life, like me, you are likely not becoming the best version of yourself as fast as you can either.

Living in the country or city you were born in means living in a presumably controllable world. You know people honk at you if you don't press the gas pedal one second before the green light appears. On the surface, you hate this event. But you secretly enjoy it. It's familiar and implies you can predict what happens in your environment, even if it's insignificant. 

Most of the experiences you have in your hometown are predictable. When they happen, your subconscious picks a response from a list of potential reactions. These are responses you and those around you have taken and survived to tell. 

For example, if your uncle honks at someone and that someone beats him, your unconscious associates honking with an adverse event. It's unideal to add "honking" to the list of potential responses when someone takes a long to turn on their car after the light switches to green. As long as you stay in your hometown, "not honking" is a good action. 

Since you only know what happens in your hometown, you don't know what would happen if you acted differently. You are, in fact, oblivious to the existence of other responses. 

Moving abroad lets you see new and more effective ways to respond to events you know. And experience the discomfort of not knowing how to act in unfamiliar circumstances. This knowledge helps you evolve on a mental and physiological level.

The body codes new proteins when you experience situations for the first time. They would have never existed if you stayed in your hometown. So, moving abroad unlocks your biological potential.

Some physiological changes will be negative at first. It is normal to feel stressed when you move to another country. But eventually, your body changes to make you more comfortable interacting with strange events.

You learn to interact with the unknown. In the future, this experience will let you explore new environments more comfortably. 

Harry Potter, Mulan, and Neo are movie characters that show how fast humans can evolve after submerging into the unknown. They became wiser and more confident after overcoming challenges in the new areas they visited.

When I lived in Mexico City, I went to events where I didn't know anyone and had "Al Pastor" tacos with people I just met. My anxiety around meeting new people decreased from six to three out of ten during this one month. 

I had interacted with new people in the past, but not with new people in a new country. 

The unique conditions of the interaction were that the people I met didn't share my cultural background. There was room for unintentional offenses. And that's something you want to avoid if you talk to strangers that don't know about your values and humor. Still, these were humans, just like the ones I had met. Meeting people from a different country was a level of difficulty above meeting people from my country. This was a small step into the unknown, precisely what you must do because exploring too much can harm you and those around you.

Harry became a praised wizard after leaving his hometown. But his curiosity almost cost him his life many times, and it ended the lives of many people he loved. He explored too much, too fast. 

I met a Russian guy in Mexico at a pizza-and-meet event. We saw each other at a crypto event, and he invited me to a rave in Guadalajara that took place the week after. "I will think about it," I said.

I ended up ghosting him. Traveling with him meant living too many new events: pills, flying to a distant city, etc.

Slowly visit new territories. If you are in France, move to Italy. People will be different but have some of the same traditions you have. Once you are comfortable interacting with other Europeans in their country, move to the US, Argentina, or anywhere outside your continent. Take meaningful but calculated risks. "Never cross a river if it is on average four feet deep."