For decades, the global career has been the north star for ambitious Indians. A role in Dubai, London or New York promised more than just a salary: it offered status, exposure and entry into an exclusive club of professionals seen as “world-class.” The story is well known—the glittering offices, the cosmopolitan lifestyle, the sense of being at the centre of global business.
Yet, what is less spoken about is what happens when the initial thrill wears off. The move abroad that once felt like liberation can turn into an experience of isolation and cultural displacement. The apartment with the skyline view can feel empty. Family milestones are missed. And slowly, a gnawing question surfaces: was the prize worth the price?
What begins as an exciting opportunity for growth often transforms into something far more challenging: an emotional survival test that forces professionals to question not merely their career choices but their very identity. The financial rewards and career advancement are genuine, but they rarely arrive without extracting a price that extends far beyond what ambitious young professionals anticipate.
This tension reflects the fundamental trade-offs of global ambition. The higher salaries, international roles, and career mobility that accompany overseas moves represent undeniable rewards. Yet as three seasoned HR leaders reveal through their experiences, the emotional costs can be devastating—disrupting family bonds, creating cultural alienation, and triggering midlife identity crises that compound with each passing year abroad.
The challenge lies not in the initial adjustment period, which most expatriates expect and navigate successfully, but in the accumulating psychological burden of living perpetually between worlds. What starts as temporary sacrifice gradually becomes permanent displacement, leaving many professionals questioning whether the career gains justify the personal losses.
Reframing sacrifice as opportunity
Sunil Ranjhan, CHRO, Dixon Technologies, acknowledges these inevitable disruptions whilst arguing they can be transformed into advantages through perspective. Moving abroad certainly means missing family festivals, navigating loneliness without familiar social circles, and adjusting to alien cultural norms. Yet he insists these challenges represent opportunities rather than mere obstacles.
“When you go there, I feel it is totally dependent on the individual, what they see and call as a trade-off,” he explains. For Ranjhan, cultural differences become windows into new thinking rather than barriers to overcome. Living abroad allows professionals to immerse themselves in unfamiliar societies, absorb diverse perspectives, and develop sophisticated leadership capabilities. The initial loneliness, rather than representing failure, opens doors to friendships across nationalities and races.
“If I spend the first five to seven years there, the learning stays on with me forever.”
Sunil Ranjhan, CHRO, Dixon Technologies
Ranjhan remains pragmatic about emotional costs, particularly during early years when family absence weighs heavily. However, he emphasises that long-term gains—exposure to different leadership styles, working methods, and technologies—remain with professionals throughout their careers. “If I spend the first five to seven years there, the learning stays on with me forever,” he says. This knowledge becomes an enduring asset transcending immediate financial earnings.
Yet Ranjhan warns against overseas moves driven purely by financial motivation. Professionals accepting roles significantly below their skill levels, chasing money rather than growth, frequently end up disillusioned. “If you are only making some extra money, neither gaining in terms of career nor learning, then the emotional price becomes much higher,” he cautions. True value emerges from meaningful roles fostering personal development, even when demanding temporary personal sacrifices.
The consequence conundrum
Whilst Ranjhan emphasises opportunity within challenge, Amit Chincholikar, group president-HR, Hinduja Group, offers sobering perspective on overlooked emotional costs. Too often, he argues, professionals underestimate the psychological burden shadowing global careers.
“What most people don’t realise is that choices come with consequences. The choices are in our control but the consequences never are.”
Amit Chincholikar, Group President-HR, Hinduja Group
“What most people don’t realise is that choices come with consequences. The choices are in our control but the consequences never are,” he stresses. Moving abroad should represent carefully evaluated decisions aligned with personal priorities rather than knee-jerk pursuits of prestige or financial gain.
Chincholikar identifies three primary sources of emotional disturbance. Cultural differences create the first challenge—many overseas workplaces feel starkly different, and Indians seeking deep workplace fulfilment may struggle with inclusion. Unrealistic expectations generate the second problem: expatriates attempting to combine international lifestyle advantages—superior infrastructure, cleaner environments, enhanced safety—with Indian cultural comforts like frequent festivals, familiar cuisine, and domestic help. This dual expectation inevitably produces disappointment.
Financial considerations create the third factor. As India’s economic trajectory strengthens, overseas roles’ relative monetary advantages diminish, rendering emotional sacrifices less justifiable. Beyond these systemic issues lies the corrosive effect of missing family milestones—absences during illnesses, weddings, or moments of joy that accumulate over time.
Many expatriates succumb to what Chincholikar terms the “N+1 syndrome”: constantly postponing home returns with promises of “next year.” Years slip away whilst reintegration becomes increasingly difficult, particularly when spouses and children establish roots in foreign environments.
“It is never possible to have it all,” he concludes. Honest self-assessment and preparation for inevitable trade-offs represents the only path toward reconciling global career consequences.
The identity crisis
Ranjith Menon, SVP, corporate HR, Hinduja Global Solutions, illuminates the deeper identity struggles emerging over time. For him, global careers’ emotional costs extend beyond immediate loneliness or cultural adjustment—they strike at belonging’s core.
“Expats will feel, ‘I don’t belong fully in my home country, but I’m also not feeling fully home in my host country’.”
Ranjith Menon, SVP, Corporate HR, Hinduja Global Solutions
Menon describes the “third culture dilemma,” unique dislocation experienced by long-term expatriates. Beginning with splits between home and host country cultures, a third identity eventually emerges—neither fully belonging to the homeland nor completely assimilated into the adopted environment. “Expats will feel, ‘I don’t belong fully in my home country, but I’m also not feeling fully home in my host country’,” he explains. This suspension between worlds becomes a powerful source of loneliness and identity confusion.
Having lived across multiple countries from Germany to Cyprus, Menon notes how practical barriers like language deepen isolation. For Indians, concerns about ageing parents compound emotional weight. Then arrives the midlife crisis: career plateaus, job security anxieties at 45 or 50, health concerns, and recognition that energy inevitably declines with age.
“For an expat, therefore, midlife crisis is not just an internal struggle,” Menon reflects, “it is compounded by other anxieties—missing key family milestones, or confronting midlife career stagnation in a foreign land.”
Many professionals who moved abroad hoping to build strong careers eventually plateau at mid-level roles, never reaching leadership’s upper echelons. Financial security becomes uncertain whilst doubts multiply: What happens if I lose employment? Where do I truly belong? Even healthcare becomes worrisome, with foreign medical systems feeling impersonal compared to community-oriented networks back home.
He summarises poignantly: “Every dream has a price and a prize. You cannot get one without giving the other.” For some, exposure and career advancement prizes outweigh sacrificial prices. For others, loneliness and disconnection linger long after professional gains have been secured.
Calculating the true cost
Together, these perspectives reveal global careers’ fundamentally dual nature. They offer unparalleled growth opportunities, leadership maturity, and cultural exposure whilst demanding sacrifices that reshape emotional wellbeing, identity, and family bonds. The younger generation, eager to test themselves internationally, often perceives overseas opportunities as unquestionably superior. Yet as these leaders suggest, real tests emerge after initial excitement fades—when loneliness sets in, family ties stretch thin, and career ambitions collide with personal costs.
Intent matters crucially. Those viewing global careers as learning and self-discovery opportunities, following Ranjhan’s approach, more likely find long-term value. Those moving without clarity, chasing superficial success markers, risk greater disillusionment, as Chincholikar warns. Even successful expatriates must navigate profound belonging questions—questions lacking easy answers.
The emotional costs of chasing global careers cannot be reduced to simple money-versus-happiness calculations. They represent lived realities: missed weddings, empty foreign apartments, children questioning their identities, parents aging without their children nearby. Yet they also encompass triumphant moments: mastering new languages, leading diverse teams, discovering resilience in solitude.
For young Indians confronting ambition’s crossroads, the question isn’t whether global careers are inherently good or bad, but whether dreams justify their extracted prices. The answer lies not in destinations’ glamour but in intentional clarity, trade-off acceptance, and courage to carry both prize and price.
Source – https://www.hrkatha.com/features/prize-vs-price-the-emotional-cost-of-a-global-career/