A YouTuber who moved from her home town in the USA to the UK has talked about her experiences of relocating across the pond, and how her new home treats its citizens
An American has talked about the big differences between the US and UK (stock)(Image: Getty)
A woman who moved from the United States to the UK has talked about the main differences between her old life and her new life.
Mindy Hickson, who posts about her experiences on YouTube channel The Hickson Diaries, said there are seven ways in which living in the UK has provided what she describes as “the simple life”.
Mindy alluded to the fact that the way Americans have been told to live is not necessarily the only way to live. She said: “Growing up in the US we’re indoctrinated into believing that success looks like a specific set of things.”
Said things that could be suggestive of a cultural mistruth, Mindy said, included owning a massive house, two big SUVs, and a having a salary that keeps climbing
Mindy added: “We’re taught if you don’t have those things you’re failing….But honest when you step outside of the US bubble you do actually start to see exactly what they mean when Europeans say things like, ‘Americans are rich in things, but extremely poor in time’.”
Mindy noted that she feels like the UK offers a safety net for people who have suffered through struggles in their lives.
In the first of her seven comparisons, she said that in the USA, there’s “this low level background of anxiety that hums in your brain 24/7. It’s the fear that one bad day…it can take away everything that you’ve built”.
Whilst Mindy acknowledged the NHS isn’t perfect, she concluded: “Nobody here in the UK is losing their house because they got sick.”
Mindy then compared isolation in the USA to the UK’s community spirit, explaining the concept of spaces where Britons could exist without spending a lot of money. She said the UK has “places where you can just exist around other people without having to spend a lot of money, pay a cover charge or have an over abundance of stimulation”.
When it came to the workplace, Mindy said she felt that the UK doesn’t weaponise productivity in the same way, and that employers have greater respect for allowing people to rest after finishing work for the day. In contrast, she said that having a break in the USA is often seen as a “weakness”.
Mindy’s fourth piece of evidence that the “simple life” in the UK is better than that of the USA is due to dignity in ageing.
She pointed out that the UK tends to look after its retirees and pensioners better by giving them things such as free bus passes to help them get around major cities.
Fifth on her list was the food. Mindy touched on how food is much less processed in the UK. She also said there is a different mentality, that eating well doesn’t mean eating more, but meant eating high quality food instead.
Mindy additionally praised the UK as she feels Britons make more thoughtful purchasing choices.
She said this is because companies don’t deliver products every two hours, and that the UK system forces people to be “more intentional” about their choices. As a result, Mindy said she’s stopped buying things “just to fill a void”.
Mindy’s final and seventh statement she felt supported her claim that UK citizens have a better way of life came down to safety.
Whilst the UK is not bereft of crime, she talked about how she felt less anxious, that she didn’t have to check the exits as she walked into a building or venue, and that she felt less on edge.