Sweden works better than Ethiopia. I still prefer my life in Ethiopia.
After my last post a few people basically asked the same thing: if Sweden works so much better, why the hell do I still choose Ethiopia? 😂
And honestly it's a fair question. I was born and raised in Stockholm. Sweden has better infrastructure, public services, salaries, transport, healthcare and internet. On paper this shouldn't even be a competition.
But living somewhere and comparing countries on paper are two completely different things.
Sweden always felt very safe and predictable to me. You get a job, go to work, come home, buy groceries, maybe hit the gym, sleep and do it again. Nothing is necessarily wrong with that, but after a while I felt like I was maintaining my life more than actually building one.
The social part is probably what I notice most. You can have plenty of friends and somehow still barely see anyone because everybody is busy with work, commuting, errands and their own routines. You ask somebody if they want to grab coffee and suddenly you're comparing calendars like two CEOs.
"How about the 24th?"
Bro it's the 8th 😭
Here I can call somebody at 5 and be sitting with them at 6. Then somebody else joins, someone knows somebody, and somehow a 30 minute coffee turns into dinner and I've met three new people, and drank 8 jambos.
Career-wise I feel something similar. Sweden is a rich country, but it's also a very mature and saturated market. Whatever idea you have, somebody probably started doing it 15 years ago and already has funding, employees and a polished website 😂
Ethiopia is almost the opposite. You constantly come across things and think, "How does nobody do this properly yet?" Obviously that's because Ethiopia has a LOT of problems, but problems also create gaps. If you have skills, connections, some capital and you're willing to take risks, those gaps can become opportunities.
This probably sounds backwards considering the difference in average income, but I genuinely know more people here making crazy money through business than I ever did in Sweden.
I'm not saying the average Ethiopian should reject Sweden because "bro Ethiopia has potential" 😂 I'm talking about my own situation and what fits me.
There's also another side of Sweden that's harder to separate from this. I grew up there as a black guy, and I've experienced enough racism to know that being born somewhere doesn't automatically mean everybody sees you the same way they see everyone else. That affects how you think about belonging and opportunity too.
Ethiopia obviously has its own problems. I'm not pretending it's some utopia. But here I feel like I'm participating in something that's still being built.
Sweden gives me a more comfortable and predictable life. Ethiopia gives me a life where I feel like there's still room to move.
Maybe when I'm 55 I'll be sitting in Stockholm enjoying functioning public transport and wondering why younger me voluntarily spent years arguing with electricity 😂
But right now, I still prefer this.