The Australia Effect
What I Found — and Lost — Down Under
Do you too have that season of your life–that when you revisit it, feels less like a real memory and more like a deleted scene, a cut to a different character, a glimpse into a version of you that you do not recognize?
That is how I sometimes remember Australia. Four months in which I grew 10 years older, or so it felt. Somewhere between the sharp, early morning squawk of magpies and the silent sweep of fruit bats across a violet sky, I became someone new. Someone I had always wanted to be.
But it cost something.
NOTE: The “Australia Effect“ is a viral trend, particularly on TikTok and Instagram, describing the physical and lifestyle transformation that travelers and expats experience in Australia. Characterized by a shift toward a more “natural,” tanned, and relaxed appearance, it is driven by Australia’s laid-back, outdoor-focused culture, warm weather, and a “work-to-live” mentality.
My junior year of college was the most pivotal stretch of my education—and I spent none of it at my university.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t know what I was good at. I didn’t know what I cared about deeply enough to suffer for. And I was certain I wouldn’t find those answers staying put.
So I left.
In Florence, Italy I studied wine, photography, and culture. I skipped off to overpriced cocktails in Ibiza, steins in Munich at Oktoberfest, and cliffside glasses of wine along the Amalfi Coast.
Those nights were some of the best of my life—laughter spilling into cobblestone streets, shenanigans that still make me smile.
But the mornings?
The mornings were brutal.
Hangovers that kept me horizontal until mid-afternoon three days a week. Headaches that pulsed behind my eyes. Nausea triggered by the faintest whiff of cigarette smoke—ironic, considering it was a habit I had adopted. Every few weeks, a new illness. Already skinny, I became skeletal.
The weekend highs magnified the weekday lows. Adventure intensified the monotony. I was vibrant 25% of the time—and barely functioning the other 75%.
I had some incredible times studying in Europe. I skydived with my cousin in Spain. Skied with my dad and brother in Switzerland. Explored Sicily on a class trip. But the space in between—I was living recklessly, and abusing myself in the process.
I knew it couldn’t continue.
Determined not to let the adventuring end—and still not having found what I was searching for—I enrolled in another semester abroad, against my career advisor’s advice, as I was already barely on track to earn enough Economics credits before graduation.
But I decided that next semester, in the land down under, I would flip the script.
During the two weeks I had home for Christmas, I stood in my bathroom staring at my bony reflection through fogged glass—and made a vow.
No alcohol.
Gym every day.
Read.
Meditate.
Live the exact opposite of how I had lived in Europe.
My theory was simple, almost arrogant: if I could test both extremes, I would find the middle. I would conduct the experiment of my own life, gather the data, and emerge wise beyond my years.
The beginning was lonely.
Making friends without going to parties and joining in for drinking games in the common room felt nearly impossible.
For a few weeks, I wavered. But then I hardened my resolve.
Routine took over.
Workout. Basketball. Volleyball. Swim. Repeat.
Every day, without fail, I completed an ab workout before my main session (so you know I was committed). I woke early. Slept early. I upgraded my dining hall plan multiple times to keep up with how much I was eating. I stretched. Meditated. Devoted hours to books on improvement and philosophy—The Defining Decade, Peak Performance, Atomic Habits, The Alchemist, Discover Your Destiny with The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.
Every evening, I sat on the same bench at sunset. Sea birds gathered at the edge of the pond. Massive fruit bats sliced through the sky, settling into weeping fig trees and dorm rooftops.
Months passed. My mind sharpened. My body strengthened. With toxins absent from my bloodstream—and Queensland sunshine bronzing my skin—I felt clearer than ever before.
The best days began before dawn. A few of us—Americans and Aussies—would strap surfboards to roof racks and drive toward Currumbin Alley. The coastline unraveled endlessly beside us, the city skyline faint on the horizon, sketched like some distant futuristic metropolis rising from mist.
Sitting on my board, cold and waiting, I’d watch the sun crest the water. A chill would flood my body, then softened into a blanket of blinding warmth. What a feeling—to wake before the earth itself, to witness its slow yawn and outstretched arms as the sun blinked its fiery eye over the edge of the world.
A quiet ignition.
A calm so profound it felt sacred.
As the waves rolled in, I’d listen for the soft heartbeat of the sea, trying to move in step with its rhythm rather than against it. Waiting patiently for that perfect wave.
May I have this dance? 🕺
Time, in those moments, revealed itself.
I became accustomed to solitude. Some days I barely spoke. Some meditations felt so deep I seemed detached from my own body. I was healthier than I had ever been—physically and spiritually.
I grew comfortable being alone.
Too comfortable.
I craved pickup basketball games and shared workouts—but anything involving drinking or nightlife, I avoided. I was terrified of breaking the rhythm. The routine felt fragile, like a house of cards balanced on willpower alone.
As the abroad students were housed in the 1st year dorms, most of my friends were 18-year-olds in their first semester, eager for their first real taste of college freedom. They were kind. Inclusive. Generous. And I declined their invitations again and again, offering excuses that left a dull ache in my chest every time I said no.
On one hand, I felt proud—anchored to something. On the other, I wondered if I was missing the point entirely.
I remembered crying for hours when I left Florence. I didn’t want to open myself up again only to face another painful goodbye. So I lived quietly. And in that silence, a truth surfaced.
Two weeks before my economics final—an exam I was sure I would fail—I withdrew from the class. I abandoned the degree. I chose English.
My advisor, already skeptical of my credit fulfillment, was nearly horrified. Summer classes and a grueling senior schedule awaited me.
But this wasn’t some sudden act of defiance. The feeling had been building quietly for months—swelling during my time in Europe, echoing from years before. A steady pull beneath the surface. Growing louder. More distinct. Until I finally recognized it as my own voice.
I wanted to create stories.
To craft characters.
To write screenplays.
To make audiences laugh, cry, shiver as dramatic music swelled in dark theaters.
While my professors lectured about opportunity cost and monetary policy, my imagination drowned them out. Scenes bloomed in vivid detail. I daydreamed so intensely I lost minutes at a time.
It was a sign I could no longer ignore.
And yet—despite clarity in purpose—I felt increasingly disconnected from my physical voice, my humor, my friends, my family. I believed that if I committed hard enough to this regimen, I would be rewarded with answers.
But life is not transactional.
When I returned home for the summer, I didn’t know who I was or who I ought to be.
I didn’t know how to merge the reckless European adventurer with the ascetic Australian disciplinarian—or how either version fit with the person I had been for twenty years before that.
In my rigid lifestyle, I had neglected my social health almost entirely. I’d developed social anxiety from isolation. My once-easy humor felt buried. I fell into one of the darkest depressions of my life.
When you cannot articulate why you feel hollow, the emptiness becomes suffocating. An invisible raincloud hovered overhead me—even on perfect 80-degree summer days. Those days are the cruelest, because neither you nor anyone else can comprehend how you can feel so cold beneath so much sun.
In time, I found myself again—familiar, yet undeniably new.
Balance has always been my battle.
I am hard on myself. My conscience can be a tyrant. I lunge toward extremes—then fall off the wagon because it was tilted too far to begin with.
I am not writing this with a tidy solution.
I am still searching.
But I know this: in chasing extremes, I have come to know myself intimately. I have uncovered fears, tendencies, flaws, and gifts that required excavation.
Perhaps by confronting a crisis about my path at twenty-one, I spared myself years of quiet resentment in a career I hated. I know that when rigor is required—when distraction must be blocked out—I can endure. I can commit.
The year that felt as though it had broken me was, in truth, more like a strained muscle—aching and tender for a time, stiff in its recovery, yet quietly rebuilding itself beneath the surface, growing back steadier and stronger than before.
Blurriness, I’ve learned, is sometimes necessary. When you experiment wildly with identity and experience, clarity does not arrive immediately. There is a healing period before the mirror reflects you cleanly again.
And I kept traveling. I kept blurring lines. Trusting that when focus returned, the colors would be richer. That new horizons would open like gates, not trip wires.
As my world expanded, so would I.
They say “the more you see the less you know”. And while this may feel true at first, I believe that over time, little by little, you can look back and make sense of things.
Yes, the Australia Effect showed up in my slower pace, my sun-soaked skin, my longer hair.
But for me, it was more about:
Solitude.
Discipline.
Reflection.
Radical honesty.
I look back with a kind of melancholy reverence for the young man who was willing to go to great lengths in search of something he could not yet name.
Though these oscillations have confused me—and though a perfect balance remains elusive—I am deeply grateful for them.
I do not wonder what would have happened if I had studied in Florence, traveled Europe, or learned to surf in Australia.
I do not wonder what it feels like to sit on a board at dawn, the horizon cracking open, the tail lifting as a wave gathers beneath you—standing, gliding across glassy water as the world turns gold.
I don’t have to wonder.
I know.
And there is no greater feeling.
𓂁🏄🏼𓂃 ོ𓂃
Banger of the week