Stay or leave. The question underneath the question

“Should I stay or should I leave Switzerland?”

I hear this question more often than you might expect.
And it usually comes after a very specific kind of loss.

A well paid job ends.
And the same role doesn’t appear again.
Not at the same level. Not at the same salary.

What shows up instead feels like a quiet demotion.

One option is to stay.

Learn the language properly.
Accept a lower paid role.
Build new skills.
Rebuild status slowly. With no guarantees.

The other option is to leave.

Do similar work somewhere else.
Earn less, but stay fluent in your competence.
Trade structure for sunlight. Spain. Portugal.

Neither option is wrong.

And that’s exactly what makes this decision so heavy.

Staying asks for humility.
The ability to be a beginner again.
To let go of how easily you were recognized as competent.

Leaving asks for a different kind of courage.
Letting go of what you already built.
Of familiarity. Of the identity attached to place and reputation.

The pain here is not only financial.

It’s the loss of orientation.
Of knowing where you stand.
Of being mirrored back as capable without explanation.

What surprises many people is what happens after the decision is made.

The discomfort often grows.

Not because the choice was wrong.
But because one future is chosen. And another disappears.

That feeling is often called regret.

More accurately, it’s the cost of commitment.

Every real decision closes doors. Even the right ones.
And the mind has a habit of visiting the lives it didn’t choose, especially when things get uncomfortable.

So the real question isn’t which option is better.

It’s this.

Which discomfort are you willing to carry without resentment.

Because every path has one.

And if you want to mirror it back with someone who won’t push you toward an answer, send me your question. Just reply to this email.

Sometimes clarity doesn’t come from choosing faster.
It comes from being understood first.

Alex