This is one of the most difficult things in life. Part of the problem is that the answers are specific to a specific individual, but so are the best ways to go

This is one of the most difficult things in life. Part of the problem is that the answers are specific to a specific individual, but so are the best ways to go about deciding them, and you don't know beforehand. I've approached these things in different ways, from tabulating the pros and cons, and what's important to me, and weighing all those things together (there are calculators for this). That was helpful in getting me to think about the issues involved, but not really insightful, and I'm not sure how much closer that approach ever got me to making a decision I felt comfortable with. A therapist once told me (and I've read similar advice) that ideally, you want to make these types of decisions in such a way that even if things don't work out the way you want them to, you can be happy with the decision you made. That is, you can look back and say "these were the values I had in making this decision, and even if things didn't turn out the way I wanted, I can be happy with what I was hoping would happen in making this decision." That is helpful in some ways, but not really if different values are being pitted against one another. It's also the case that what you think will be important to you isn't really, or that what you want isn't really what you thought. Reading about or talking to others who have been in similar experiences, and made one or another decision can also be really helpful, but in my experience there's often something not quite the same that's critical. That is, my decision was never quite the same as someone elses, and we weren't really in the same situation. Ideally you want things to be reversible in some way, that you can go back later if things didn't turn out the way you wanted. Sometimes this is more possible than you realize, or works out in ways you don't anticipate. E.g., maybe you could choose to return to India later. Maybe your family will unexpectedly decide to go with you. Maybe something else will happen that will make the choice moot. But sometimes things are less reversible, which is also something to consider. To be honest, in the end you just have to go with what you're most comfortable with, while recognizing that you might not be really comfortable with any of the options.