On Settling Down
I was recently writing an extended answer to the question “where do you want to settle down?” and thought I’d share publicly.
Loaded question, been whittling at this one for years now. To me, “settling down” implies that you live in one place with your family forever in a home that you’ve purchased. There’s a lot of assumptions here that I’m gonna blow open.
In a meaningful sense, “where” doesn’t matter that much to me, in terms of country/city — having lived in a lot of places, everywhere has pros and cons. More important to me are the rhythm and the living context. How much time do I (we) spend in what places? What environments do I (we) want to be in?
Do we spend 9 months based somewhere to accommodate our kids’ school year and go elsewhere for the other 3? Do we move every 3 months because our kids are homeschooled or we’re part of a group of traveling families, like Traveling Village? Is there a regular rhythm at all that actually feels ideal to settle on? Are we open to interstitials, like if we decide that we want to spend this year sailing the world?
What’s the living context of where we live? Are we in a single family home in the suburbs? Are we on a farm because we want to be closer to the land? Are we living in a community because we want that for ourselves and our family? Are we living in the same area of town as a bunch of friends and loved ones? Are we in an RV? Are we in a caravan of RV’s?
The single family home in the suburbs forever is of course an option here. I’m not opposed to it, depending on a bunch of factors. One of my biggest fears is living an isolated, miserable life in the suburbs, the way I saw my parents stuck in that for 20 years. But I’m very actively cultivating my capacity to build an amazing life for myself in any environment (in particular, having a rich social life and connection to the world around me) and my confidence in my ability to do this continues to grow.
And, having said that I could do it, I harbor major doubts that the canonical notion of spending forever somewhere is what anyone truly wants — you, me or the kids. Our collective notion of “settling down” is a bit of a polite fiction, to pretend there’s less uncertainty in life than there actually is. Few people genuinely spend their whole lives in one place these days anyways.
Most important to me in the “where to live” question is aliveness and meeting needs, which is how I’ve directed myself over the last 4 years. Is a child getting bullied in school? Is he/she struggling with not enough structure? Too much? Are you getting bored somewhere? Exhausted/ungrounded from moving too much? Are there location requirements for a job opportunity? Is a parent struggling with health? I’d like for our living situation to be responsive to the needs of the people in our family in real time.
Without knowing the future, here’s a bunch of important factors for me:
- I have close friends and loved ones all over the world that I would like to continue being in connection with. My family is mostly in Taiwan
- I’m consistently the happiest when I spend most of my waking hours with people I love. Which tends to happen most easily when living in close proximity to friends and family. I’d like to live in as close proximity to the people I love as there is the mutual connection, trust, support, capacity for, ranging from same part of town to same building
- Adventure, exploring, uncertainty brings me alive
- I like warm weather, and particularly the beach and ocean (beach volleyball, surfing, diving, etc.)
An example of a specific arrangement I might enjoy is 6 months of the year based somewhere for kid’s education, probably in the Americas or Europe, living in community with friends that we deepen relationships with over multiple decades. Probably the same physical place every year for continuity, but could rotate or shift any given year. Then, have the rest of the year open ended — the balance of 50/50 planned vs unplanned time feels elegant to me. The rest of the year might include some time in Taiwan, some time traveling/exploring, some time visiting friends, some time checking out and/or contributing to communities we have interest in, some time following whatever the kids are stoked about — dinosaurs? Take ’em to a dig. Medieval history? Take ’em to medieval castles. Whatever. Some years slowing down and sinking into the place and the local community and seeing initiatives through, some years changing things up — maybe following a unique job opportunity, taking care of sick family, volunteering with disaster relief, etc.
