This section is not written for those planning to continue their education abroad, but for those who believe that a life abroad will be an antidote to the anxiety stemming from uncertainty in their youth.
When I’m with young people today, I witness how unhappy they are and how they feel part of a pandemic of unhappiness around them, and I hear them say that they are the unluckiest generation in history. As I listen to them, I acknowledge that they have valid reasons for being unhappy from their perspective, but I find the assessment that they are the unluckiest generation in history very naive. I see that this belief, sharing it, and constantly repeating and amplifying it, increases unhappiness and helplessness. Because I think three of the six main causes of unhappiness reinforce this perception. The first cause of unhappiness is living in an environment surrounded by unhappy people. In social settings, everyone contributes to increasing each other’s unhappiness. The second cause is the gap between expectations and reality, and the third is comparison. Social media creates a leverage effect on these three factors, amplifying general dissatisfaction.
As a result of sharing posts about the country’s difficulties, young people begin to believe that their unhappiness can be solved by going abroad, and in this situation, the desire to live abroad is seen as the only way out. This trend is partly fueled by conversations within the family, and plans to put it into practice begin in the early years of high school. The influence of peer group interactions transforms the idea of planning a future outside of Turkey into a life goal.
Geography is destiny, but so is history…
Ibni Haldun wrote 650 years ago that geography is destiny. However, those who paid a heavy price in their time know that history is also a part of destiny. Young people born in Ottoman lands between 1880 and 1900 experienced the Balkan Wars, the Great War, and the War of Independence. Western Anatolia was filled with villages without men. Young people born with an Ottoman identity at that time found themselves landless and without identity in 1918. Therefore, some took