Lauren, thank you for this piece. I'm a Kenyan-born Irishman, grew up in Italy then England. So it was easy for me after college to move to Switzerland, where I lived and worked for 9 years. It was equally easy to immigrate to Silicon Valley (I didn't immigrate to America, I just woke up in America after I'd been in San Francisco a few years). It would be relatively easy for me to leave and go live somewhere else, today.

You can do this too. The hardest part is friends and family. The visa, work permit, etc, all happens and there you are.

I have come to realize that you don't have to live in the #1 country in the world. Life in Belgium, Norway, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand, is absolutely delightful. You can live in Mexico where the government is 90% corrupt, and you can be very happy, healthy and safe.

You can also live in America, and life can be really good even as the nation falls from civilization and enters an era of post-empire decay. Your friends are still wonderful, the countryside is still beautiful, and there is still hope that we will bounce back from this barbaric episode. No country is without problems. The US is an amazing country, just having a moment.