On Being Happy in Istanbul

Being an expat living in Istanbul over the past few years, I often get asked this question: Are you happy in Istanbul? This query usually comes from friends from my home country and people that don’t live in the city. I often also get asked another variation of this question by random people living here once they learn I’m from Barcelona: How could you possibly be happy in Istanbul?

These questions get especially frequent when Istanbul or Turkey gets bad press for political, economical or national security reasons. I am hoping with this article to be able to answer to these questions to friends, acquaintances, random people, and also to myself.

Allow me to digress for a moment to illustrate my answer.

At the beginning of the 90s there was a quirky little TV show called “Northern Exposure”. In Spanish it was dubbed as “Doctor en Alaska” and that was a pretty accurate tagline. A young and neurotic medicine student from New York, Joel Fleishman, got a student loan to finish med school. Due to the terms of the loan, he found himself assigned to four years as a general practitioner in Cicely, a remote town in… yep, you guessed right, Alaska. Cicely was no ordinary village. It had very peculiar townsfolk and it was surrounded by an aura of delightful magical realism. But Joel was an angry self-absorbed guy that was always missing New York. Every episode showed the contrast between this almost fairy tale village and the clueless outsider.

Why I am summarizing a cult TV show for you? Firstly, because you should definitely watch it. And secondly because Cicely was a very unique place where Joel got to interact with all of these eccentric inhabitants and even fell in love with the most interesting woman in town. But he kept missing New York. He felt that Cicely was a punishment and throughout the entire series he always wanted to get out of Alaska. Spoiler alert – by the end of the 5th season he finally got back to the Big Apple. In my blurred memories the beautiful scene plays out like this: Joel, on a ferry with the Manhattan skyline in the background, smiles quietly. He is at peace. Then we cut to his girlfriend receiving a postcard with an image of the famous skyline. She turns it over and all it says is “NY is a state of mind”.

It is that particular scene I so often reflect on when I get asked if and how I can be happy here.

Listen, I get it. I get the traffic, the queues, the stressed out and rude people on the streets – and I’m not even getting into politics, religion or economics. But you’ll always be surrounded by negative and/or toxic people that do not know how to be happy and probably, consciously or unconsciously, try to convince you that you cannot by any means be happy in this chaotic concrete jungle. Let me share a secret with you – yes, you can. Oh boy, you really can. Actually I’m pretty sure that you, inhabitant of Istanbul, are already happy but you haven’t realized it yet.

I know I may sound very much like a self-help book but I firmly believe that you don’t hate Istanbul. You hate yourself in Istanbul. And it’s just because you have the wrong attitude. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Istanbul. That might be difficult to believe but it is all about your attitude towards the city.

If you are an expat in Istanbul, if you are in Erasmus on a semester exchange or if you are here for a few months teaching English until you figure out what to do with the rest of your life, just allow me one small bit of advice: stop living like a tourist. Stop living like you are just passing through. Think what would you do if you were to live here forever? Wouldn’t you come to peace with traffic? In my humble opinion, we need to stop complaining. We need to act instead. Adapt. Enjoy. Carpe Diem. Yes, some days are going to be harder than others but stop missing your motherland because we both know you are probably idealizing it. You are certainly idealizing it. Stop missing the lost paradise. There is no lost paradise. Because if you move back you’ll probably start to complain about other things too after a short while. Stop using it to ignore the obvious paradise in front of you. You are living in it every single day. Try to slow down. Appreciate the architecture, the ever changing light, the sudden vistas and the delicious bal kaymak. We need to constantly remind ourselves how lucky we are and how much beauty surrounds us. Because if not, our brain is lazy and tends to go back to a state of permanent bitching and a sense of entitlement. “I need to have this to be happy.” “I need to live in a city with proper transportation to be happy.” No, you don’t. You can be happy here.

I dare you to deny me that Istanbul is the greatest city in the world after crossing the Bosphorus by ferry. Or having an amazing breakfast anywhere. Or witnessing a jaw-dropping sunset. You know pretty well the rest of the long, long list.

To haters I would say that if you don’t find your own “New York” here, you probably wouldn’t even find it in the real New York. You have to find the paradise inside you. And Istanbul is not a hard place to get closer to it. Let Istanbul be part of you and you’ll be surprised how much it has to offer. Appreciate all that you have around you. Really take a moment to appreciate it. And eat the god damn delicious bal kaymak! Love Istanbul. Be happy in Istanbul. Istanbul is a state of mind.