Is It Important to Love the Place You Live?

As Richard Florida notes in a recent CityLab article, “There are three big decisions we make in life: What we choose to do for a living, who we choose for a life partner, and where we choose to live.”

In all the rush and hurry of living our lives every day, it’s a bit compelling to read a statement like that, let it soak in, and suddenly realize well, yeah – those really are the three most important things (assuming children and pets are lumped in with the “life partner” choice, of course.) So why do we spend so much time worrying about a million-and-one other things – and often doing it at the expense of those three priorities that matter to us the most?

We agree with Florida’s assessment that the most important of those three items may very well be where we choose to live. Your home base is where all your energy, hopes, dreams, and ambitions come to rest every night. In addition, it only makes sense that you’re going to be working nearby and developing relationships with those who share your geographic location.

However, being happy where you live doesn’t simply depend on the house, neighborhood, city, or state you choose, as many people can attest. Many discover, after making multiple moves to places they thought they always wanted to live – that ‘happiness’ isn’t an enforceable clause in the mortgage documents.

Really, though – the ability to enjoy your environment can be affected more by your state of mind than the space you’re occupying. Now, don’t get us wrong – we’re not going all “woo-woo” on you here. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that – because we’ve been known to do it on occasion!) We’re not saying that all you have to do is “think” yourself happy. But we will say that even for those who feel they’re living in the wrong place and their true happiness lies in some distant locale, there are things we can all do to help ourselves invest emotionally in where we are right now.

Some people may call the ability to love where we live a form of “place attachment” – where an emotional bond is created between a person and a place. It’s a concept rooted in environmental psychology, and often displayed when a person chooses a certain city as a destination to live in, based on their personal experience and lifestyle preferences.

But life can lead us in unanticipated directions, as we all know. (John Lennon was right – “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”) So it’s not at all unusual that for many of us, where we’re living at the moment is not our first choice for this point in our life.

Rather than railing against the universe about it, though, it’s far better for us (both mentally and physically) to actively seek out some specific things that we can learn to love about our current place on the planet. By stepping outside your comfort zone (or in this case, your dis-comfort zone) – it’s entirely possible to create new experiences and memories that you consider as plusses or positive aspects and that you can look forward to repeating. (Some things stay pretty much the same from city to city, you know – like yoga, or exercising, or hobbies, etc.)

In doing so, whether those engagements are with individuals, like-minded groups, landscapes, or even spent in solitude – in many cases, by altering our behavior we, in turn, alter our perception of our environment. Or at least a little part of it. That alone can make a huge mental shift in our outlook. Coincidentally (and happily!) – that also makes it a whole lot easier to improve our attitude, our relationships, and even our health.

It’s a fact of human nature that most of us can find both good and bad in things, places, and situations. But it’s our frame of mind that often guides us more toward one direction than the other.

In the same CityLab article, the author of This Is Where You Belong, Melody Warnick concludes that, “My theory is that cities don’t make us happy. We make ourselves happy in our cities. The really good news is that place attachment doesn’t care if you live in the objectively best city on the planet. (Not that one even exists.) Contentment comes from being passionate about where you live, no matter what.”

New Home Resource helps current and future homeowners with all of their Las Vegas real estate needs. Whether your preference is for property management, a newly built home from a local builder, or a resale property in just the right location, a New Home Resource Realtor® is here to provide just the service you’re looking for. Please contact a New Home Resource Realtor® today at 702-365-1000 or at www.newhomeresource.com. Broker Joanna Piette, and agents Denise Moreno Thrasher, Jessica O’Brien, Evelyn ‘Beng’ Kern, and Kathy Paterniti are all here to help!