zlacker

In certain contexts this is called “doing a geographic”. Notorious trap for people who look solely for external causes of their discontent and ignore internal.

>>mattfi+(OP)
It is fascinating to see old friends fall into this trap. Things seem great for the first few months but eventually the same old issues arise with time.

There is a stereo type in Australia that the British complain about the country once here. A big part of this is believed to be that they leave their country to start over in a place that looks completely different, start a new job and meet new people only to find that they fall into all the same issues. Rather than realize the issues are just a part of the society, they can tend to blame the country instead.

That said I used to work with someone from Nigeria, very smart fella, they had a lot of issues with the country but also understood why they left their country. All they said was "Different country, similar poison. Just pick your flavor." They fundamentally got the issue at hand.

>>mattfi+(OP)
There's an equivalent in personal finance where people think that a payrise will solve their money woes. Their habits remain, their discretionary spending scales up, and they usually continue on with the same problems.