In 2013, I was a newly promoted accounting manager at the biggest telecom company in the Philippines.

My husband was a sales account manager in a multinational company.

We were a young couple, happily married with two kids.

We lived in a 3-bedroom townhouse, owned a car and had 2 helpers.

But that same year, I resigned from my high paying and prestigious new position. I decided to raise my kids full-time instead while keeping myself open to freelance income opportunities.

Shortly after that, the whole family moved to the Middle East because my husband was given a 1-year work assignment.

During that year of transitions in our lives, we saw an ad in the newspaper offering a free assessment to determine whether we are qualified to work and live permanently in Australia, New Zealand or Canada.

Since I am an accountant, we were qualified for PR status with me having to be the principal applicant.

Our application was processed for around 2 years

But what really fast-tracked it was when the Express Entry program was introduced.

Our immigration consultant advised us to apply for that program and re-submit all requirements. Less than a year later, we received our PR visas to Canada.

All throughout the application, our families and friends only had a vague idea of our plans to migrate. Sure, they knew we had an assessment and occasionally met with a consultant, but they never realized we were that serious with our plans.

Until we told them we received our visas.

All of them asked the same questions:

“Why are you moving to Canada?”

“Why would you leave your comfortable life behind and start all over again in Canada”

“What else are you looking for that you can’t have here in our country?”

Back then, our reply was always “to have a better quality of life”.

And nobody understood…

I guess, at that time, we weren’t also sure what we meant.

All we knew for sure was we’re looking for something better - not in terms of money or any other material wealth.

It was something we cannot fully put in words, at that time.

You see, back then, when both my husband and I were working in our prestigious companies. Sure, we were well-paid and taken care of by our employers. But we were also very busy.

So busy that we barely had time left to play and enjoy time with our family.

Our weekends were spent running errands, doing chores and catching up for lost time - only to be rushing back to work after 2 days.

Back in 2013, I was living my life based on what my culture expected me to do, so as not to disappoint other people, to keep up with my peers, and to make "use" of my education.

At the back of our minds, maybe we thought that to be able to enjoy our life as a family, we had to reset our lives and start all over again.

And probably we thought that the best way to do that is to move to another country.

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