The Golden Door

For the past two years I have been working to attain my goal of living abroad.  I have always dreamt of living in a different part of the world, and the idea of getting a second residency has become increasingly appealing for numerous reasons.  My wife and I have been living together in the United States for over two years.  When she moved here from New Zealand she was aware of my aspirations to relocate, and at the time I was focused on trying to get us to Australia.  When those plans fell apart due to border closures, I went back to the drawing board.  After eliminating numerous places (Taiwan, Philippines, Saipan, Bali, Portugal, American Samoa, Guam, Costa Rica) from the list, one country alone met or exceeded my prerequisites for relocation: Uruguay.  Understandably, my wife is reluctant to move.  She has said that I am selfish for wanting to move.  I tell her that I cannot deny that what I am doing is utterly and entirely selfish, and for that I feel bad.  However, there is a method to my madness.  I feel this is a now or never opportunity, and I would not be moving forward with this plan if I did not believe the potential benefits of moving greatly outweighed the risks of staying. I devised an entertaining metaphor to illustrate our current circumstances, and this is what the metaphor is: 

For the past two years we have been living in a house.  The house is manageable, but I would like for us to have the option of leaving if so desired.  To that end, I have regularly worked on the construction of a golden door that leads from the house to a magical garden.  The golden door is so magnificent, and the garden which it leads to is so glorious, that even under normal circumstances any sane person would want to walk through it to the garden.  But now, for reasons known and unknown, the house is filling up with smoke.  It seems there is a fire or possibly multiple fires alight in the house.  This door to the garden which I have been building for years is now complete.  The house is filling up with smoke.  Now is the time for us to walk through the door to the garden.  Granted, there is uncertainty on the other side, but there is also uncertainty in the house.  If we don’t like the garden, we can always return to the house.  This is a no brainer.   The house is on fire.  The garden is a sanctuary.  I have built the golden door. All we have to do is walk through. Please, I am begging you, let us walk through. 

This was the analogy I came up with.  The analogy can accommodate two notable caveats.  The first being: what if the garden is not as it seems?  Perhaps once you get to the garden it starts raining, and the shelter is inadequate.  That’s possible, but at least we will have tried.  This second caveat presents the more significant moral question: if the house is filling up with smoke, do you escape through the golden door, or do you stay back and try to put out the fire before it burns down the entire house? 

Image from Lonely Planet.