Why Teaching Abroad Feels Both Like Running Away and Running Toward Something

There’s a peculiar tension that comes with the idea of teaching abroad. On one hand, it feels like a leap into the unknown, a way to escape routines, expectations, or even the invisible weight of a life that’s become too familiar. On the other hand, it feels like chasing something — growth, adventure, understanding, connection — a deliberate step toward a future that is bigger than ourselves. For me, imagining that life is both a thrill and a quiet terror.

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Running Away

The “running away” part is easy to understand. Teaching abroad offers a chance to leave behind the familiar: the same street corner, the predictable schedule, the loop of routines that can feel comforting but sometimes suffocating. For some, it’s leaving a city that never quite feels like home, a job that’s become mechanical, or even the echoes of people and expectations that quietly dictate your days.

To run away isn’t necessarily to abandon life; it’s to step outside the frame you’ve been painted in. The idea of living in a different country, navigating a new language, learning cultural norms from scratch, and trying to connect with students who don’t share your context feels, in a way, like shedding a skin you’ve outgrown. It’s tempting, exhilarating, and yes, a little selfish — the kind of selfish that’s necessary for personal growth.

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Running Toward

But teaching abroad isn’t just about leaving. It’s about going somewhere, too. It’s about stepping into classrooms filled with potential and possibility, even when the walls, desks, and chalkboards are foreign. It’s about forging connections with students and colleagues, about learning not just their language, but their stories, their struggles, and their joys.

Running toward something is about ambition — not the kind measured in paychecks or titles, but in experience, empathy, and perspective. It’s about challenging assumptions, testing patience, learning adaptability, and discovering who you are in a context stripped of your usual reference points. Every lesson plan becomes a small adventure, every cultural misunderstanding a chance to grow, every student interaction a mirror reflecting parts of yourself you didn’t know existed.

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The Space Between

The tension between running away and running toward is where the magic lives. It’s in that in-between space — not yet there, not fully gone from home — where imagination and courage meet. Even before I’ve packed a single suitcase, I feel the tug of two forces: the desire to escape something, and the desire to embrace everything that awaits.

This duality mirrors life itself. Growth often comes when we step beyond what is comfortable, balancing fear with curiosity. The unknown is intimidating precisely because it matters, because it challenges us to redefine ourselves and the world we inhabit. Teaching abroad is an extreme version of that challenge: a full immersion into uncertainty, with both risk and reward magnified.

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Imagining the Future

I think about my first day, walking through the doors of a school in a place I’ve never seen. I imagine the quiet terror of introducing myself, the awkward smiles of students, the tiny victories when a lesson clicks. I imagine learning just as much as I teach, gaining insight into a culture that isn’t mine, discovering the ways humans are remarkably similar even when worlds are different.

Even now, before the move, the idea of teaching abroad feels like both a break and a beginning, a departure from the familiar and an arrival into the extraordinary. It’s not just an escape, and it’s not just ambition; it’s a deliberate collision of the two. And it’s terrifying, in the best way possible.

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Running away and running toward are not opposites in this journey—they’re partners. To step abroad to teach is to leave, but also to arrive. It’s to shed comfort and embrace growth, to step into uncertainty and discover resilience, empathy, and joy. It’s to chase something bigger than ourselves while acknowledging the pull of what we leave behind.

Even before the plane ticket is booked, the classroom filled, or the first lesson delivered, the act of imagining it transforms me. It reminds me that growth rarely comes without risk, and adventure always demands courage.

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