An Emigrant’s Observations: Feeling Guilty About My Good Life

English
By Anatoly
10 min. read

Nine years ago, I left Krasnodar, in my native Kuban region, and settled in Austria. I have been writing a blog about emigration almost since my first days here, and over the years, the blog has changed along with me. At first, I simply wanted to preserve my impressions of an unfamiliar way of life. As the years passed, I began paying closer attention to my own reactions, many of which had previously seemed completely natural to me.

Recently, I have become more cautious about talking about the good things happening in my life. Feeling happy comes easily to me, but for some reason, sharing that happiness with others can feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I catch myself wanting to describe things a little more modestly, as though that would make my satisfaction with life seem more acceptable. A pause has appeared between what I feel and what I say about it, a pause that I do not think was there before. Since when did my own happiness have to go through an editor before I could talk about it?

When You Have to Explain Your Happiness

In discussions and comments on my blog, I have repeatedly encountered irritation in response to something positive I have shared. The person I was talking to heard boasting in my words and sometimes even tried to convince me that there was nothing to be happy about and that I was far too pleased with how my life was going. At first, these reactions surprised me because I was simply talking about something that had brought me positive emotions. I had no hidden message in mind, and I certainly had no intention of comparing my life with anyone else’s.

I have long forgotten most of those conversations, and today I could hardly explain what was behind the other person’s harsh reaction. There were also plenty of friendly responses, but certain unpleasant remarks have stayed in my memory much more clearly. Sometimes they come back to me years later, when I can barely remember the circumstances of the conversation itself.

When sharing something that had gone well, I increasingly emphasised how difficult it had been to achieve, as though I had to prove that I had earned the right to feel happy through my efforts. The unpleasant conversations were long in the past, yet I continued behaving as if I still had to answer the criticisms made back then. For a long time, I did not notice how familiar this behaviour had become, until one day I caught myself justifying my own happiness to people who had not even asked me anything.

The Person Who Keeps Arguing in My Head

Whenever I sat down to write, I could almost picture a reader who already saw me as a smug emigrant living comfortably in prosperous Austria. I imagined that this person would read my words and interpret an ordinary story about something good as indifference to other people’s difficulties.

Sometimes I removed a sentence that had seemed completely natural to me because I was already expecting someone to misunderstand it. In its place, I added a cautious explanation intended to convince the reader that I was not trying to boast.

Rationally, I understand that readers interpret my words through their own experiences, about which I usually know very little. Even the most carefully chosen words can remind someone of something personal and take on a meaning I never intended. I can explain my intentions, but I cannot completely control how other people understand what I say.

“Happiness Loves Silence”

The idea that it is better to keep quiet about good things was familiar to me long before I emigrated. I grew up in Kuban, in an environment where the fear of provoking someone else’s envy was closely connected with a belief in the evil eye. People advised you to be careful when talking about your good fortune, and it was considered better not to mention things that had not happened yet. I heard these warnings from childhood and later recognised them in the behaviour of adults. Against this background, the saying “happiness loves silence” sounded so familiar that hardly anyone even asked why happiness was supposed to hide in the first place.

At the same time, showing off success is perfectly acceptable in Russia, especially when it comes in the form of obvious signs of wealth. An expensive purchase allows others to judge a person’s social position and compare it with their own, so even someone else’s envy fits into the familiar way things work. A calm statement like “I am happy with my life” is much more complicated. Someone may be happy simply being close to the person they love and value that relationship more than anything normally considered a sign of success. This kind of contentment is difficult to fit into the familiar competition in which everyone is supposed to know whom they are ahead of and whom they are falling behind.

Someone announces that they have bought an apartment and immediately adds that it is small. I have long called this habit of accompanying good news with a minor complaint “safe negativity.” The little qualification seems to make someone else’s good fortune less provocative, because the listener is immediately reassured that even the happy apartment owner has something to complain about.

Later, I found an interesting explanation for this habit in Russian Talk, a book by American anthropologist Nancy Ries. Studying everyday conversations among Moscow residents during the final years of perestroika, she described a particular genre of conversation — “litanies,” or lengthy complaints about everyday difficulties. These stories helped people feel that they shared the same fate and find understanding among others who knew the same kind of life. Complaining became a way to connect. As I read about this, much of the communication style I had known since childhood began to make more sense. If people are used to feeling connected through shared dissatisfaction, one person’s open happiness can disrupt that closeness. It is as though they have stopped taking part in the conversation that previously brought everyone together.

Back in Russia, I learned fairly early not to treat these rules with much respect. I felt at home there, and it was relatively easy for me to live without such rituals and talk about my life as I experienced it. Other people’s ideas about how much happiness it was acceptable to show rarely made me hold back. If my satisfaction with life bothered someone, I left that irritation with the person who felt it.

What a Proper Emigrant Is Supposed to Be Like

After moving abroad, I began noticing that people sometimes decide in advance how I am supposed to experience emigration. They are ready to hear about how difficult it is to adapt to another country, and I know that experience well myself. Yet calmly admitting that I am happy with my new life sometimes raises far more questions than talking about difficulties.

In conversations with Austrians, I openly said that I felt better living here than I had in Russia. I thought that someone born in this country would be pleased to hear such a grateful opinion of it. But sometimes the person I was talking to seemed to start looking for some special explanation for my happiness, as though it must be the result of certain advantages that they themselves did not have.

When talking to Russian-speaking emigrants, I encountered a different expectation. For some of them, longing for the home they left behind seems to serve as an obligatory sign of loyalty to their homeland, something they expect from you even many years after moving away. Admitting that the new country has turned out to be a better place to live can sound almost like a betrayal of the country where you were born.

I can miss the people who remain in Russia and at the same time be grateful for the life I have managed to build in Austria. These feelings coexist perfectly well within me, so I find it strange that anyone should expect me to choose between them in order to fit someone else’s idea of a proper emigrant.

War Changes the Weight of Ordinary Words

After Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine began in February 2022, all of this took on a different meaning for me. The war became part of everyday life and remains present even during the hours when I am doing completely ordinary things. When I read the morning news about attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv, I worry about the people I know who are still there and about my friends’ loved ones.

Sometimes I spend a long time thinking about whether I should write to someone after another attack. I do not want to intrude on their morning with a question they may already have had to answer many times. And yet, a few hours later, I usually write to them because I have spent all that time thinking about them and their loved ones. I am safe here, and it is difficult for me to imagine the constant tension experienced by people in Ukraine and those whose families remain there. I can have a wonderful day, and then I open my phone and read about another attack. I think about people I know who are now afraid for themselves and their loved ones, and suddenly I feel uncomfortable talking about how well my own life is going.

This anxiety is mixed with a sense of being personally connected to what Russia is doing. I have lived in Austria for many years and made my position on the war and the Russian government clear long ago. Yet sometimes I catch myself feeling as though I should be held responsible for what is happening in my homeland. My own peaceful life here sometimes makes me uncomfortable when I think about how much suffering the country where I was born is causing others.

When Empathy Starts to Wear You Down

For a long time, this caution seemed to me like a natural expression of empathy. But I increasingly notice that the question “Is it appropriate for me to feel happy right now?” comes back even over the most ordinary things, and trying to answer it constantly takes more and more energy.

Holding back my own happiness does nothing to make life easier for the people I worry about. During my years of emigration, I have repeatedly seen how constant dissatisfaction can become a habitual way of looking at life. A person begins noticing good things less and less, as though they have already decided that anything positive is too insignificant to change how they feel about their situation.

Noticing My Inner Censor

My inner censor speaks in my own voice, which makes it easy to mistake its demands for my personal beliefs. When I think that it would be better to keep quiet about something good, I sometimes find it difficult to understand how much of that decision is really mine and how much comes from the habit of expecting other people’s disapproval in advance.

I want to learn to notice when I start justifying myself before anyone has even questioned me. When I recognise this habit in something I have written, I can consider whether I really need those explanations and avoid rushing to respond. That inner demand then loses some of its unquestionable authority, even if the desire to soften what I have written is still there.

I continue to worry about people who are going through difficult times, and that feeling stays with me even on my happiest days. I would like to talk about my everyday life as freely as I talk about the things that worry me, although I cannot always manage that yet. After all, I love my life and want to enjoy it without feeling that I have done something wrong to someone. But while the war continues, that is difficult.

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О проекте:

Меня зовут Анатолий. Я автор проекта «Жизнь эмигранта». В 2017 году я эмигрировал с семьёй из Краснодара в Австрию. Мы с женой работаем в маркетинге, а для помощи тем, кто хотел бы переехать, создали сайт Emigrants.life.
Проект «Жизнь эмигранта» ― это ежедневные новости о жизни, быте в Австрии и Европе. Переходите на сайт проекта Emigrants.life, подписывайтесь на наши страницы в Telegram , Facebook , Instagram, Twitter , а также принимайте участие в голосованиях в нашей группе в Telegram .

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