If it weren't for Covid I probably would have left here a year ago or more. I, like many of the people I hang out with are in a limbo of sorts in that we don't really see the benefit of getting back to our home countries since the world is in such chaos at the moment.
For one thing, I can't really imagine trying to join the workforce back in the United States at this particular point in time even though I keep hearing stories about how there are so many job vacancies going unfilled back there.
When I talk to my friends back in the States about how their lives are they all seem depressed and kind of lost in life because of the way things are back there and I don't have any desire to be constantly living my life in fear of being ostracized because i forgot one of the myriad of protocols that exist. A lot of my friends barely ever leave their houses for this exact reason: Going out in public is a chore and they only take their masks off for photo opportunities then put it back on immediately.
We have regulations here in Thailand but they are very loosely enforced. It seems that unless you go to a government building - which I rarely do - or the entrance of a shopping mall - which I also rarely do - we kind of get to do whatever the hell we want to here. We also are not getting ravaged by Covid because of this lackadaisical approach to things.
For me, in the outskirts of Chiang Mai, the regulations are barely even noticeable although oddly enough, people seem to always wear masks when they are driving their scooters only to remove them as soon as they get to wherever they are going.
Of course you can never really tell if this is because of Covid or because of the intense air pollution that we experience in Chiang Mai every year around this time. Or maybe it is because Covid runs wild on the motorways while it is extremely inactive in parking lots and curbs.
The point of all of this is that I am quite pleased to be "stuck" here and am glad that I didn't flee back to my home country like a lot of my friends did when the pandemic dominated the news. Of all the people that I know that went back to their home countries in a panic over a year ago, almost all of them regret having done so and now they experience great difficulty in getting out.
In the meantime Thailand has been exceptionally cool about visas for all of the expats that are stuck or living here and visa issues used to dominate conversation with everyone but these days it isn't really even mentioned. Most of the people that I know don't even have their passports anymore but just leave it in the hands of their agents who continually renew their visas on their behalf and on occasion will stop by and get some money from them.
My situation is a bit different because as a school teacher I am seeing unprecedented levels of job security since there are no alternate candidates for my position. I'm not using this as leverage and still try to do as good of a job as possible in my job, but I have exactly zero fear of getting fired because I know that if that were to happen that there wouldn't be anyone to take my place. A lot of the teachers that I know have used this opportunity to look for higher paying and better jobs at other schools but I guess I am just lazy and I also know that I have no intention of sticking around here should the world decide to stop being insane one day.
I make more money than I need to live my life, I have fun every week, and I have a great group of friends that I can hang out with, maskless, without getting in trouble for doing so.
I don't see any reason to try to change this situation because when I talk to my friends back in my home country, I very rarely get any sort of good news from them. I suppose I am very lucky in this regard because I was one of those guys that was on the fence about leaving a year ago. Thank God my laziness got the best of me and I decided to stay put!