love your home

i'm kind of lucky, i guess, because i love and i mean really love where i live. i like the people, the weather, the ocean, for me it is the center of the universe. i've loved this island ever since i moved here many years ago and that love hasn't diminished one tiny bit.

i'm not one that expects perfection and this place has its problems, there is lots of crime, poverty, and dysfunction like anywhere, but it's not severe enough to make me wish i lived somewhere else. i love traveling, love adventures but by the end of the trip i'm dying to get home. i enjoy all my time away soaking up the new terrain but no other place has ever called to me the way this island does.

A while back i was perusing the internet strings( i'm addicted to the strings) i clicked into an article that detailed Americans satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction with their domicile.

Shock number one, more people are unhappy with where they live than are happy.

This took me so off guard that i have spent way more time contemplating this unhappiness than i should.

The questions running through my mind ran the gamut but one stood out.

Why does where you live not satisfy you?

That question dominated my thoughts more than any of the others i came up with. i understood why people were unhappy where they lived but what i couldn't understand was why they didn't change it.

Why be miserable living somewhere you didn't want to? And what was it about that place that was making you miserable?

This island certainly isn't for everyone. If you are used to things happening rapidly and with a certain amount of expertise and quality don't come here. Things get done but at a much slower pace which can drive speedy people up the wall. They forget, after the vacation is over, that those lackadaisical qualities were charming at one time.

i know for many, economics is the primary motivator for staying where they are even when it makes them miserable and hence my next question.

If it is only money that keeps you in place, but it is making you unhappy, is that money really that important? Would it be such a leap to take a gamble and move to a place that might fit your psyche more completely, even if you had to live on less?

Here is another question.

Are you really yourself in this place where you are so unhappy?

Can you find yourself there? And finally,

if you can't find yourself there, why do you stay?

In the midst of writing just now i went to check my e-mail.

A crabby friend sent out an e-mail this morning that ends with a line that is perfect for this piece. He said and i quote:

This mornings run was uninspired so I got in the water to cool off with a water run. Waist deep the first hawkbill turtle breached 20 feet from me. Chest deep a second one breached 30 feet the other side of me. Started water running and for the next 20 min. a dolphin swam from 10 ft of me to 100 yds from me and was still there when I left for work

LESSON: A sucky day in the VI beats a good day most anywhere else.


Then another friend adds in:

It really is a hard life we live down here... I'm really jealous of the dolphin...

And so, think long and hard about where you want to spend the bulk of your life, raising kids, feeling part of a community and making a difference. If you can't be yourself, don't stay.