10 Ways to have a Superior Abroad Experience
1. Chose a place that is right for you. And by you I mean others.
When choosing where to go, keep in mind that the most important part of your experience won’t actually be about where you go, but about where you tell other people you went. Because of this, it’s important to not actually go where you are most interested in going, but where other people wish they could travel. That way you can tell them about how you lived their dream; the one they weren’t actually able to experience.
Maybe travel to a place of your heritage? That way you will be sure to have at least audience of your family that latently begrudges you with envy. You will achieve a level of superiority over your other family members because you will know more about your heritage, and thereby their heritage, based solely off of your travels. Going to the place of your heritage also allows you to escape from the criticisms others may have about your host country selection. Rather than saying you're going to Ireland to get drunk every night, you can say you are going to understand more about your family’s past.
If you don’t want to go to the place of your heritage, try going somewhere every one wishes they could go. Places like Italy and Spain are great options because you can show your friends back at home that you have succeeded in going to the places that successful people go. This facade of success will heighten the illusion that you are actually in control of your life and therefore a superior person.
Another option is a more remote place. Why not go to Croatia? A place where most Americans don't even know exists? Going to these places will show your friends how culturally superior you are. It will give the illusion that you’re independent and make decisions for yourself without giving the impression that you only chose this place to be validated as being different from everyone else.
In conclusion, where you go isn’t as important as how you market where you go. Which brings me to my next point.
2. Have the time of your life.
You should know that having the time of your life isn’t nearly as important as telling other people that you are having the time of your life. Make sure you post photos of yourself at very touristy places so everyone will know where you are and how much fun you appear to be having. Being abroad is a great way to show everyone on Instagram that you are having a better time than they are. Your friends are probably going to be posting pictures of the community you left and this may make you feel lonely and insignificant. The best way to deal with this crisis is to make your friends, who didn’t go abroad, feel like they are missing out. Because if they are questioning their life decisions more than you are, you are having a superior time. Remember, if you’re insecure but other people are more insecure than you are, you’ve achieved superior insecurity: which is better than actual security, because it’s superior.
3. Don’t forget your culture
It can be difficult to be an American in another country. It’s kind of like being an immigrant in the US only with money and a place to stay and a sense of invulnerability and superiority. Because of this difficulty, its important to let the friends you may make in your host country aware that their culture alone isn’t enough for you. You can do this by checking your feed every time you are expected to put effort into a conversation or waiting at a bus stop. Its important to let your host culture know that it doesn’t meet the standard of entertainment you are accustomed to and that you need to escape the humdrum of intercultural boredom by consuming two cultures at once. This will make you appear much cooler than you actually are, which will in turn make you cooler than what you actually are, because the scrutiny of others is really what determines your value as a human. The more caught up you are with the superficiality of your own culture, the less you will miss out on during your abroad experience. And missing less is the same thing as gaining more.
4. Be yourself
There is nothing a foreign culture values more than you being comfortable with who you are in it. Rather than adjusting to a new social code, apply the one you learnt in The States to every social situation. The locals will really admire how drunk you get at clubs, how loud you are while walking the streets, and how inconsiderate you are in basically every situation. Being an international student makes you more cultural than anyone else. Because of this, you can show your host culture what it means to be cultural without actually participating in that culture. Because you're from the US, you have the exclusive right to walk on bike paths, expect people to speak English to you, huddle in a small group of other Americans that take up the entire side walk, and ask for a vegan hamburger at the local meat market.
5. Make a list of everything you want to do
How will you know if you are having the time of your life if you don’t find some way to economize it? Rather than wandering the streets aimlessly and having random conversations with locals, it is much superior to keep a grocery list of everything you must do in order to fully consume another country and feel validated as a traveler. The superficiality of this way of living is irrelevant; what matters most is that you go to as many places as you can and take pictures to prove it. In order to elevate this to an even superior level of fake authenticity, make sure you post all of these superficial pictures on social media so you can get the validation you didn’t receive while you were actually at these places from the people you didn’t go there with. After all, its not actually your experience with these places that matters, its your experience having others experience a digital and inflated version of what you’ve experienced that is most important.
6. Immersion with your host culture
Immersion is integration between the culture you are coming from and the culture you are going to. The best way to immerge is to be aware of the differences between the two cultures. You want to pick out all the good things about your host culture and tell them to your friends at home so that they know you are in a better place than they are. Likewise you want to tell the people of your host culture all the great things about The States that will make them feel insecure about their homeland. This way both groups will realize how superior your life is to theirs.
I understand that achieving this level of superiority isn’t for everyone. An alternative approach is to complain about these two cultures. If you can’t be respected as superior, it is best to be sympathized. Telling your friends about all the difficult experiences you’ve had in a new culture will get them to give significance to your ego that requires constant pampering. And this works both ways. Why not discuss with the members of your third world host country how difficult it is to live in The States? Gaining others sympathy is one of the best ways to cultivate the attention you desperately need to achieve your superiority.
7. Recognize that traveling is learning
Everyone knows that traveling is learning but what they might not know is that when you travel you don’t actually need to learn. Because traveling is learning you don’t need to actually attend classes or do any homework because you will be learning either way. In education, it’s not what you put in, but what you get out of it that really counts. And if what you get out of it is a concert and free beer, then you’ve learnt so much more than anyone who’s actually attending classes. You should think of a semester abroad as a semester out of college because you’ll learn more that way. That’s just common sense. There will always be classes back at home but will there be the opportunity to do something really dangerous and stupid in another country that you can then tell your friends about?
8. Travel while you travel
It’s so sad when people think going abroad is all about exposing themselves to just one country. Why go to one country when you can go to five? The amount of countries you go to is directly linked to how superior your abroad experience is. You don’t study abroad in Paris to spend time in Paris; you study abroad in Paris so that you can travel to Germany and Greece. Superior people’s cultural appetite can’t be satisfied by just one country. So, to be superior, its essential that you spend at least two thirds of your time in countries other than the country you actually chose to stay in. This way you can tell other people in your actual host country how much you love different host countries and thereby express your superiority to them. People at home will also be impressed with how many places you go to and feel even more insignificant with the fact that they aren’t traveling; which is what being superior is all about.
9. Become a superior person
Being abroad is one of the best ways to change as a person. I’m not going to tell you how its going to make you more responsible because the practices of taking care of your body, brain, environment, and others is only for people less superior than you are. Rather, being abroad provides you with the unique ability to run away from your problems at home and pretend they don’t still haunt you or wait for you when you return.
Being abroad also allows you to strengthen your greedy and self-absorbed ego. Rather than repressing yourself to only a few beers and a tight purse, recognize that this is your one opportunity to let loose and indulge in your desires. Rather than focusing on the inner brokenness that causes you to find satisfaction in external consumptions, try to fill this unattended void of pain with monetary value and consumer experiences. You will learn that your insecurities are actually your strength as they motivate you to exercise, diet, travel, and consume other things that will grant you the approval of others and superior statuses without ever actually making you feel complete or unbroken. In this way, insecurities are the best resource because they are readily renewable. In fact, those who are best fit to travel are those who are most inwardly destroyed and are seeking to escape their problems rather than deal with them. It’s these people who are going to have the most superior abroad experience.
Consuming pleasures is a great way to develop the narcissistic ego that is necessary to obtain not only a superior abroad experience, but also a superior life. You deserve fleeting pleasures and it’s these brief moments of excitement that are what life’s really all about. What makes you immortal is the blindfold you put on yourself to your own grief, guilt, and anxieties. After all, if you always live young you’ll never grow old.
10. Integrating back into regular life
When you return from abroad you need to tell everyone about your abroad experience. If you don’t, you won’t be fully giving yourself the validation you think you need. You should be able to make a reference to your abroad experience with every conversation you have, that way no one will forget how superior you are for having gone abroad. You should also assume that everyone is eager to hear about your experience, after all, they liked all your Facebook posts about them. When you begin talking about your experiences, however, its important to remind everyone that they were, in fact, not there and cannot really understand your stories. This will distance them from your superiority. It is also important to meet up with other people who have been abroad directly in front of those who haven’t. This allows you to demonstrate your superiority as another superior person is recognizing this superiority. Deep down you know that other people who have gone abroad are really your new social competition which is why its important to remind them that while you were abroad you traveled to more places than they did, drank more martinis, and over all experienced a greater shopping spree of culture. It’s easy to tell who had the most superior abroad experience based on who talks about it the most and it is your job to make sure that person is you.
*** Hopefully you all recognized the sarcasm in this piece. I wrote it to have some fun with a type of writing style I haven’t tried yet and to over represent some of the narcissistic tendencies of abroad students. Going abroad can be a very healthy experience but it can also serve as a way for students to subconsciously gratify an insecure ego. I wanted to bring attention to this to increase my own awareness of how I do things here for the external justification and approval that makes me feel good about myself and so that others can see themselves in these over exaggerated ways of thinking. Being abroad for a length of time opens up the opportunity for students to experience aloneness and vulnerability and I think that being aware of how we deal with these experiences is helpful for self growth and living a more authentic life.
