Image from author.
Hear me out on this one: We are not supposed to spend our lives in the same single place. A controversial statement if I’ve ever said one, I know.
But look at the history of human behavior: we move. Migration is one of the defining aspects of human existence. Every year, millions of people immigrate to new cities, countries, continents. The need for adventure cannot be denied. We crave this feeling of something new, a fresh start.
I have lived in the same house for almost my entire life. I have walked the same halls I crawled down when I was months old, and I have had the same neighbors since I came home from the hospital. Some would call this consistency, routine. I would call this peak boredom.
Currently, the most motivating idea in my life is the possibility of living anywhere else in the future. I want adventure and excitement, anything other than the state of boredom I currently live in. The world is huge. I have seen so little of it, and a lot of this is accredited to the fact that I have only ever lived in one place. I have exhausted my suburban hometown, and am ready for a change of scenery.
I’m aware of how privileged these statements are. I know that most people don’t have the luxury of starting a new life away from their roots. But that doesn’t make me believe these statements any less. Just because someone can’t reasonably move away and start new doesn’t mean they don’t want to.
I believe that your life is yours to live. I believe that, on occasion, we need to be selfish and remember that there’s no use dedicating time to something you cannot change. Instead, I believe that it is our duty to ourselves to make the most out of our very short lives and do as much of what we love within the time allotted. Now, there are limits to this free-spirited lifestyle, of course. Bills need to be paid, loved ones need to be cared for. But these things do not need to be the only thing consuming our lives.
There is an entire world of unexplored possibilities waiting to be discovered outside your front door. I mean this literally. A home is a great place to fall back on, but life shouldn’t be lived on fallbacks. It should be lived by taking risks and finding things you love. Quoting a line from one of my favorite movies, Past Lives, “If you leave something behind, you gain something too.” Am I saying you can’t find things you love in your hometown? No. But I am saying that there’s so much more to love everywhere else in the world. To live in the same town for an entire life is to be confined to a single floating bubble, unaware of the plethora of soapy suds surrounding you. If this bubble is popped, the amount of opportunities available becomes inconceivable. New experiences just require a little bit of poking, that’s all.
Sarah Hamilton is a junior at Washington High School and has lived in the Bay Area for the majority of her life. This is her first year working on The Hatchet and she hopes to write about her opinions and cover global topics. She is a captain of the girls tennis team and works at the bookshop in town. Sarah is an avid reader of novels by Haruki Murakami and loves going to concerts and exploring San Francisco and Berkeley. She hopes to attend college on the East Coast and major in English with a minor in economics or publishing.