by admin of allchile.net on Sun May 04, 2008 10:17 am
mistertk, don't worry about your English on the forum. It is still better than most of our members after a few drinks (or sober).
Here is the thing. It is completely normal, and I believe you recognize, that at your age the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. Sometimes it really is greener.
I lived in or visited about 25 countries before finally settling down in Chile. The funny thing is, I was fairly sure that Chile was it at about number 19 or 20, but had to check out the rest of South America and then live in the Netherlands, Belgium, and China just for good measure.
Travel goes from being a whole new experience to feeling like a job at some point, and by then you have a real appreciation for which country or culture fits you. Towards the end of my travels I felt like if I visited one more 5,000 year old building or visited another culture that was going to go extinct I was going to puke. I use to get a rush out of the culture shock. In fact I would call it a bit of an addiction. At some point that turned in to culture fatigue.
At your age, I would highly encourage you to get out and see the World. Do some pack packing. It does not matter how much money you spend on University education or what University you go to, you will never get the education you will get from traveling. In fact, once upon a time that was the point of education. It was suppose to teach people about a World they could not visit for themselves. Somewhere that got lost in a rush to crank out working brainless zombies.
Travel while going to the University. One of my favorite ways of financing travel around the world was by using the excuse of going to different University degree programs. It will improve your education overall, and make you more competitive when you do come back to Chile. We know a lot of Chileans that have been out for years and years working and going to school, that are now coming back to Chile because of the opportunities here.
As for the States, it does have a lot of wonderful things. It also unfortunately has a lot of bad things. That is likely what ticks me off about it the most. The price I had to pay for the good things just got too high. Perhaps some day that will be corrected, I just decided I was not going to watch my life pass by waiting for that to happen. I think a lot of the people that move to Chile are in a similar position. The problem with the States is that we are still the best at selling the "american dream" as a product or commodity to the World. Very few really have the American dream in America.
As for consumer debt, in every country it is just another form of slavery. Stay out of it now. Once your in it is very hard to ever get out. The system is designed to keep you in debt. All those paper rich gringos, are now in real trouble because of the mortgage collapse in the States. They payed a heavy price for that American dream, and now are all but certain to never have an opportunity again to obtain it because their credit is destroyed.
As for all those lazy, unmotivated, incompetent people and businesses in Chile there is an up side to that. Remember, for a person that is even kind of motivated there are nearly unlimited opportunities in Chile because of it. A business partner years ago said to me about Latin America, "you don't need a new idea, you just need a good idea". Do something right that is being done half ass in Chile, and you will be rich.
I told this to someone I think before on the forum. To figure out what needs to be done in Chile, spend a week with a pen and piece of paper in your pocket. Every time you see something that annoys you or does not work correctly, write it down. Don't think about it. Just write it down. At the end of the week sit down and go through the list and figure out how you could provide that service or correct that problem, with the least amount of investment on your part (ideally no investment) and get someone to pay you to do it. That is where the money is at. Chances are if something is annoying you, it is annoying every other Chilean also.
Now, from that list figure out which one of those things you would like to do (e.g. rank them by what you would enjoy doing ). There is your short list of real opportunities. You might want to do this for a while over a month or two just to gather more options, but the method should work the same. Even if you never do them, it is very educational exercise in economics. If you try it and it fails, it is even more educational ( the importance of very little investment comes in to play here ). Most people that succeed in business failed at more than 1 before getting it right. I think the average is around seven. In Chile, if you only make half as many mistakes as the other guy, you will be a big success.
http://www.allchile.net/chileforum/topic1419.html
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