Valuing home

People value places in which they do not live because innocence (still) resides there.

My home is less than a mile from a lake, 15 from a ski resort, and three hours from a city with a Walmart, Jamba Juice, and Apple Store. Some would call this paradise, but things change after you live here for nearly 11 years. The beautiful outdoors grows old, the whimsical small-town feel fades away to become bothersome, the people all look the same, and you feel trapped in a merry-go-round of misanthropic activities.

After ten years, I started to think of ways I could leave this town. To this day, I devise grand schemes of holidaying elsewhere. The sea has always interested me, and I must say that rain accompanied by foggy mountains is my favorite of weather conditions. Something like Scotland, or maybe Australia, Whales, New Zealand, Amsterdam ... the list goes on. Then I stop to think about something: What is this common allure to where I already live? People spend half their savings accounts and weeks of their time just to visit, yet I can’t seem to find the beauty here.

I try my best to value home. Yoda would have done better.

I spend days chasing lightning storms, snapping photos of people enjoying silly activities, and even spelunking when I get the chance. But in all of this, I don’t think much of where I live. It’s just the predictable boisterous atmosphere that I’ve lived in all my life, and I think nothing of it. People travel thousands of miles just to ski and snowboard here; fishermen flock to the many lakes of the Eastern Sierras in the summertime; the city folk come from Silicon Valley and Orange County alike to enjoy the hot springs; and everyone who visits Mammoth Lakes seems to have more fun than I have here in my life.

Is it that the novelty has warn off? Possibly. I think the problem lies a bit deeper, though. First there’s the obvious fact that humans become accustomed to the ways which they have lived for a while. This means that they don’t think twice about where they live. It’s a gift from God, yet they dismiss it without a thought. Now, take the average vacationer. He will be much different than this debilitated and restless resident. He will only see the value in a small town like mine, and he would love to make a life for himself here.

There’s a purpose to vacations, then. When you get tired of the boring old place you live, it might be time to take a look at another beautiful gem on the Earth. There are many spectacles within driving distance for some, but they never leave the couch. These people cannot complain about where they live because they’re making it their permanent home and cannot embrace change.

The hard decision is whether to move somewhere more exotic or stay where you are. You could choose the former, but you will be searching for something different sometime down that green road. What’s the solution, then? For some, it might be to make the best of where they live. Instead of thinking about climbing a rock or taking a boat out for the day, these people must actually do the things they dream of. For others, it might be to move somewhere more fitting, where the rain falls every day and the sunsets are ravishing. For me, it might be to remember how valuable life was to me as a child, without worry or care of what people thought. We all need that once in a while.