Guilty as charged, and it was an assumption on taking work inside vs outside your legal jurisdiction. I recognize that it may be harder for some (many?) to find good clients/projects closer to home. That said, I run in to folks in the US that have similar issues/complaints (no idea if GP is in US or not), when often there may be better options.

You need to look, and keep looking. I've been doing this since the mid 90s, and the effort it took to network, get exposure and build a brand was, IMO, much harder back then than now. However, there is likely more competition today than... 25+ years ago, so, perhaps it balances out in some way.