Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Specialisation and Generalisation In The Domains Of Moving Home, Jobs and Relationships
Escaping the comfort zone
One of the reasons why I started getting into self-development and improvement was because I felt alone
Confused
Isolated.
One of the most important things I realised was regardless of how much I
Learn
Read
Absorb.
No matter how much I wanted to change my ways
Thinking
Planning
Considering.
If I was to remain in the same place
I would likely continue to do the same old things
Environment
University and a lockdown of reflection facilitated this realisation. This realisation that, sometimes, shifting the environments we found ourselves in can be incredible learning tools.
Tools that enable us to think more widely.
Tools that enable us to realise that we are more sociable than we thought or allowed ourselves to be.
Tools that enable us to see ourselves in a new light
As Alain De Botton puts it in How to Travel:
Over the years, in your life back home, you have learned how to avoid situations of awkwardness. Whenever something feels alien or in any way threatening, your instinct has been to retreat, and you’ve missed out on a lot.
But now, [in this different place] fitting in is no longer an option. You are the stupid foreigner. Of course you can’t know what you are supposed to do.
Maybe not looking like a fool is simply not an option in any rich and interesting life, wherever it may unfold. [So] through travel, you’re freeing yourself from your inhibitions. You’re growing up — and into yourself
And I’ve seen this throughout my life: friends who are remarkably intelligent but with little motivation, a lot of dissatisfaction and who remain deep in their comfort zones. But upon doing years abroad or degrees at different universities in unfamiliar places, they find different parts of themselves activated as new opportunities require them to adapt and respond. They have to find places to live and people to live with. And thus, they become empowered as the realisation dawns on them:
This was there all along but now they see.
They can achieve and do much more than they thought themselves to be capable of.
Whilst they always had the choice in their previous circumstances, trying to change ourselves without an idea of who we want to become and the same cues bringing about the same habits can be incredibly difficult.
Yes, we can start small but moving away from environments that are remarkably familiar or comfortable can occasionally be the nudge, as was with my friends, to spark a realisation and journey of growth, self-learning, and happiness.
Now this isn’t to say that moving to a completely new place is the answer you need if you feel lonely, isolated, confused — absolutely not. You can put yourself out of your comfort zone in your familiar place, starting with this realisation that you always have the choice. You have the opportunity to explore this place as if it was new, joining clubs and societies or taking up new hobbies. These alone can connect you to the wider community and bring about a change in perspective of this place that you have come to know very well.
The importance of routine and calm
For the past three years I have moved house every single year.
Each time having to adjust to this new building, house, room.
Each time spending the initial period setting everything up: my ways of working, familiarising myself with the house and the people.
Each time, in a way, discovering myself again.
And what I realised is the following:
The first few months (around two for me) is a lot to take in. The mind works hard to adjust to this novelty and way of living. Often, it is not just moving house but moving between communities, social groups, universities. As a result, everything is peculiar and different.
The shower curtains are pretty rotten.
There is mould on the walls of the bedroom.
There is no kettle or toaster.
There is no bed in the room.
Google maps is relied on heavily to direct oneself around this monstrously large enigma of a place, especially in the first few weeks.
It is during this time that one feels so uncertain, so overwhelmed. Thus, it is also the time in which one must be the kindest to oneself, to embrace the feelings and stick with it as it dissipates in the face of time, slowly but surely.
As in Dune:
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
When you first move to a place, there is so much. You don’t know what to focus on. You simply don’t know what is important. In a way, you are experiencing a sensory overload. But as you continue to invest your time in this place with these people, your focus improves and the little things are allowed to die away as what is important becomes apparent. Your sense of security in this place increases as you now know who to go to when you’re feeling down, where to go when you need to let out some energy. You have already set everything up allowing focus on the bigger and better things.
After around five months, the house and surrounding area has become increasingly familiar yet still retains some novelty as to remain exciting. The place has become sufficiently familiar to allow routines and systems of habits to be optimised, sufficiently familiar to give the brain the headspace and breathing room it requires to even consider the necessary improvements and alterations to the current set up. It has become sufficiently familiar for the sense of calm and homely feeling to kick in as the community and one’s presence within it builds.
Whilst I was never able to stay in the same house for longer than a year, I saw in those that stayed for two years that so much of the fundamentals were able to be automated as their minds gained more breathing space. Such people really refined their rooms, locked into their habits, and were able to focus on other things. The basic had been absorbed into their psyches. The fundamentals were no longer constantly and substantially changing, facilitating more focus on consolidating friendships and other things.
The Conclusion
It seems that there is great merit to both moving and staying.
In shifting our environments we are forced to escape our structured, routine ways of doing things, our familiar ways of acting, our comfort zones. New environments activate different, perhaps unforeseen and hidden parts of ourselves, allowing us to shed old skin and be reborn, taking with us what works well and abandoning what does not. In moving we realise different parts of ourselves. Yet the dangers of constantly shifting, avoiding commitment and investment are also seen — the mind remains in those first two phases, still adapting, clarifying, scanning the environment to discover what is important. It is unable to really settle down, to optimise and refine, to really become consistent in one’s habits.
Is one better than the other? Should I stay or should I go? This is like asking the same about the knife and fork. The answer depends on the context, the meaning individual and solely up for you to decide.
If you are in a rut and have been for a long time, feeling stuck and confused, it is worth escaping your comfort zone by doing things in your familiar place first. Nevertheless, travelling to different places may provide much needed perspective and activate different parts of yourself to be that nudge and catalyst needed to escape that rut back in the familiar place. However, that should then be used to identify a new desired identity and accordingly the corresponding habits that will confirm that identity. Travelling by itself is insufficient.
On the other hand, if you are bouncing around from place to place, perhaps you might find that in settling down, the mind is able to stop working so hard, processing everything, and gain the breathing space and sense of calm for you to build large, successful systems of habits, consider the bigger picture, and invest in the friendships and community around you.
It’s interesting how the parallels of moving physical place relate to jobs, relationships, hobbies and goals — moving about is incredibly important to learn about ourselves and the world, gaining information as to our strengths, our inclinations, and what we find important. As David Epstein argues in Range, gaining match quality information and being able to connect disparate ideas across different domains is one of the best qualities to have in a fast-changing and increasingly complex world. Yet at the same time we see the cost of not investing in one physical place, job, relationship, hobby or goal — the mind works furiously hard in the sunk-cost stage, figuring out what is important and setting up the foundations for later down the line. Moving about constantly means that we remain in that foundation phase, not realising the benefits of depth, specialisation and connection as investment of time increases.
However, as hinted at previously, sometimes the match between person and choice is so poor that even time and investment of energy and hard work is insufficient — this is why learning about ourselves and moving towards our inclinations and strengths is so important.
Thus, it is not black or white but contextual and individual — it is up to us to decide whether to stay for time sufficient enough to evaluate and understand whether we are suited to it and whether it is something we want in our lives or to pursue another interest, move to another place.
