Being an immigrant isn’t the easiest of adventures in my life.
I think the cost of life as an immigrant is underestimated.
As a student, you are always running to find a company that can not only offer you an internship but also be open to sponsoring your visa
And then once you have a job, you have to keep convincing the employer to sponsor your H1B visa.
And then once you have your H1B visa, you have to convince the employer to apply for your green card application.
If the employer agrees and applies for you, your whole job for the next 2-3 years is to maintain the job so that your green card application can get confirmed.
Given the long duration of 2-3 years, the possibility of employees either changing jobs, leaving jobs, or losing jobs increases.
And then the cycle starts again - you start in this 2-3 year journey of getting your application filed for green card.
And then you live in fear for 2-3 years to ensure you can keep this job and get your application filed.
For some immigrants, this process can take 10-15 years of life.
What’s happening now is even more interesting.
Even if your green card application is filed, you face a wait of over 100+ years for a green card
This means you remain in a 60-day H1B cycle for life.
The fear of losing your job and having to start all over again in another country remains a constant in your life.
It will pretty much impact all your relationships at work - with your leaders, with your manager and with your co-workers.
Since fear is the exact opposite of courage, this model of waiting for a green card and being in this forever queue with a 60-day period decreases risk-taking among immigrants and also causes them to lose the courage they had when they first immigrated
The journey of choosing to be an immigrant was hard, the journey of living as an immigrant is even harder.
It took me a while to accept that immigration did impact my mental health.
And as I meet more and more immigrants, I can see that I wasn’t alone in this journey.
There are many immigrants like me who are still going through a lot because of the immigration system.
Now that we are on the other side, I want to share this important resource with you.
“The Daily Stoic” by Ryan Holiday is one of my favorite books. It helped me improve my mental health significantly.
I used to read this book - one page a day and did it for around 2 years.
It helped me develop self-discipline, offered clarity of thoughts and helped me think better about life.
Last year, my younger brother came on a visit from India and saw me reading the book. 2 days ago, I saw a poster on his wall and I asked him what does the poster say. He said it says “Read Daily Stoic one page a day”
That’s when I realized that this resource is truly a gem.
I hope it transforms your life as well.
Have a beautiful day in paradise, let’s live today, it’s not forever! 😘🥰💕💜
#india #america #immigrant
Day 5/60 H1B. How to take care of your mental health as an immigrant?