I’m an American emigrant living in Norway. Life is good. I don’t miss the United States, and my patriotic family often asks me why.
Rather than argue over a good meal, I simply tell them that the U.S. is an okay place to live.
The U.S. is an okay place to live.
It’s a Level 4 country with Level 4 features such as advanced healthcare, stable Internet, and high wages. Life in the U.S. is more luxurious — for most people — than life in a Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3 country.
Some people think that the U.S. is the greatest place to live, and I politely disagree.
I’m flying back to California next week to visit my family, and I’m petrified that my kidney infection will return and require a visit to the hospital. If the U.S. was a great place to live, I wouldn’t fear seeking treatment for a life-threatening kidney infection. The hospital would be a place of rest and rehabilitation — not a place of bankruptcy.
The U.S. is an okay place to live.
Had I traveled internationally as a minor, I might have known that U.S. tuition prices were nonsensical and crooked. But I didn’t. If the U.S. was a great place to live, young Americans wouldn’t be preyed upon by government-approved loan sharks.
The U.S. is an okay place to live.
I was fortunate to grow up in a small, hippy coastal town along the Pacific Northwest. The scenery surpasses that of Norway, and so does the gun violence. In 2017, the gun death rate in my childhood town was twice that of California. If the U.S. was a great place to live, high school newspapers wouldn’t run stories on missing kids and unresolved murders.
The U.S. is an okay place to live.
Despite being a European citizen and a permanent resident of Norway, I’m required to file a U.S. tax return every year for the rest of my life. All citizens are required to file — even those who are banned from entering the U.S. due to their religion and those who permanently live abroad. If the U.S. was a great place to live, its citizens wouldn’t be banned from the country or taxed after leaving.
The U.S. is an okay place to live.
What qualifies as a great place to live?
Norway ranks pretty highly on the World Happiness Index. Tuition and healthcare are free at the point of service, gun ownership is high but under control, and Norwegian citizens and residents are not obligated to file Norwegian taxes after leaving the country.
By these measures, Norway is greater than the U.S. But how should we measure greatness?
If we measure greatness in terms of global health, we see that countries like Norway and the United States produce (or export) a substantial amount of the world’s fossil fuel emissions to fund their luxurious lifestyles. This is great for the people who live in these countries now and terrible for everyone in the long-term.
So I cannot say, in good faith, that Norway is great, either.
Norway is an okay place to live.
When I left the U.S., my Dad hit me with a drop of fatherly wisdom. He said, “Well Simone, I hope you’re happy over there. Just remember, ‘wherever you go, there you are.’”
There’s a lot of truth in that old adage. Greed, hypocrisy, and violence exist in every society known to man. We cannot outrun these traits; they are part of the human condition.
Perhaps the greatest societies are not those with the highest wages or the newest iPhones, but those with the utmost compassion for life on Earth.
Because wherever we go,
here we all are.
