Humans come in two separate forms. Either they are intensely territorial or somewhat nomadic. You likely already know exactly which one you fit into. We all have our preferences for living. It might be desiring to move away to a culture completely alien to us, or moving to a city hundreds of miles away from where we are raised. Conversely, some people are born, live a full life and die in the same city or town.
While this latter option is surely not a bad or incorrect way of living life, the alternative could potentially be considered preferable for some people. We’re not here to make a judgement one way or the other, but we are here to potentially explore the benefits of moving onto pastures new. As we become adults we gain our independence, and are able to move anywhere we please. If we feel like we need a change of pace, or we need to experience something new, moving away can be a hugely positive step.
This is by no means the only positive point to moving. If you’re on the dividing line between moving and not, this article might help you make this decision:
Starting Fresh
Some people are simply looking for a new pace of life. The location where you live will always have a significant effect on this, because we are intensely connected to our environment. Our environment is part of us, in that if it wasn’t there neither would we. For that reason, it behooves you to assess if your environment is helping you or harming you. If it’s the former, then you should feel comfortable in staying there. If you find that your local environment leaves something to be desired, moving somewhere new can help you immensely. Even moving a few miles out of town introduces you to completely new people, new locations of interest, and a new pace of life.
For some people, moving somewhere no one knows them is heaven. This can help you reassess how you approach the world, and the current and present relationships you form, free from the knowledge of the interpersonal past. If life could use more novelty, and you’d prefer making your own decisions with nothing but your newly formed reputation to follow you, then this can feel like a breath of fresh air.
Of course, we’d recommend that you visit areas you plan to move to before you go. One or two extended vacations to this area can give you a taste of the local populace, and how friendly or close to your personality they feel. Sometimes you just know a place is right by the general interactions you have there. If the opposite is true, then never be afraid to cast your net elsewhere. You always have freedom of choice in your living situation.
Careers
If you find that the jobs in your local environment aren’t as great as they could be, moving away to form a better career might help you. For example, if you’re positively set on a career in the performance arts, living near theatre districts, media hubs or even moving to Los Angeles to be part of Hollywood could be part of your aim. Careers will all have their ‘golden location’ depending on how localized some jobs are. Even those careers completely online can have their own blossoming hubs, such as Silicon Valley’s investor nest.
It might be that making the move from a village to a city could grow your career prospects from dull to thriving. It’s always best to do this research online. A good measure is to search online for the average income in an area, the house price average, the employability index as well as how quickly urban development is taking place. If all of these figures look good, it could be the location of your interest offers some real opportunity, especially if you’re looking to take your career to the next level.
You Define Yourself
This is more of a personal benefit. As you move to new places, you become more able to define yourself in the world. You not only become a citizen of the village you once lived in, but you become more of a national explorer. You become more independent as a result, not tied to the small cultural identity you might have been carrying. The pace of life is dramatically different in small towns compared to cities, and so experiencing the two makes you more of a complete and rounded individual.
This takes a certain form of inner strength, and willingness to experience the unknown. It might be that a city or new town takes a few months for you to fully appreciate. You might not feel settled there until two years in. But the effort of living somewhere new will give you that ability to live almost anywhere, because you’ve already conquered living somewhere you are unfamiliar with. As you learn new habits of resting in a new environment, you become better suited to travelling, exploring, growing your courage and generally becoming a better person.
You Trust Yourself
Another personal benefit, arguably even better than defining yourself - is you begin to trust yourself. As you rely on yourself to achieve everything you must do, you begin to form a sense of complete faith in yourself.
If you move away by yourself, or you move into a flat share with random strangers, you become much more able to form friendships of necessity, and trust yourself to carry out the tasks you need to survive. It’s much less tempting for you to wait for your siblings or parents to carry out your chores. Of course, the days of living at home might be long behind you, but even living near home can lead you to bring laundry around to your childhood home and eating plenty of meals there. When you completely have yourself to rely on, you become much more comfortable in your daily responsibilities.
Resting in a comfort zone is the fastest way to stagnate, yet by trusting yourself to carry out your general tasks in a new place, you become much more able to explore outside of this. As a human, nothing could be healthier for you. After all, it’s much better to be a small fish that can grow in a big pond, than a big fish stifled in a small pond.
Variance In People
When you move to new locations, you meet a wide range of people. It could be that the best friend you will ever make in life rests behind your next move. It could be the one you become happily married to forever is the first person you’ll meet. Both of these could actually be the same person. As you meet a variety of people, you start to experience cultures and worldly perceptions face to face, no through a television show or book you’ve read. This real-life experience offers so much it’s hard to put into words. You’ll know when you experience it.
You Become Better With The Next Move
If you feel you need a new change of surroundings once more, then you will be much more able to capitalize on this if you’ve already done it once. Selling the apartment or nullifying the lease and finding one many miles away will be easy this time, as will the process of moving. You might find that you’re more shrewd in your apartment choices, or are more interested in purchasing a development property this time. If so, check out resources such as Property Guru to make the best decisions. It could be that international move for your job becomes a little less scary than it might have otherwise seemed. One thing is for sure, you’ll be more relaxed and more organized during the process.
Moving to pastures new can be scary, exhilarating, truly interesting and a great adventure. If you’re heavily considering it, we hope this article has gone some way in convincing you.
