Making the most of what you have

Pro: miles from the nearest Target. Con: miles from the nearest Target. (Image by Lukas Bieri)

I was away from Maine long enough to appreciate that it isn't just the miserably cold and lonely backwater I had believed it to be as a twenty-four-year-old.

In moving to Atlanta, I was able to see the beauty and specialness of the place I grew up.

I lived in Atlanta long enough to take it for granted. But then I was away long enough to miss its magic, too. Now that I'm back, I'm reveling in the mild weather, the diversity, the density, the tennis and the restaurants.

I now see that your experience of a place is what you make it. There is always something to appreciate.

That said, I don't think that my twenty-four-year-old self should have stayed in Maine to make the most of it. I needed to experience something different in order to grow.

Notwithstanding the fact that I could have dug into community life in Maine and forged a future for myself, the fact is that this undertaking was far, far easier in Atlanta. Not only were there more people, more opportunities, and more inputs, I had more enthusiasm. I was excited to create a life there because it was new and different.

Later on, when Atlanta wasn't new anymore, I challenged myself to discover new ways to stay engaged and enthusiastic about my life there. There were always possibilities I hadn't yet uncovered.

And yet, eventually, I moved away. I began a new adventure somewhere else, full of rowing and sailing and new friends. There was no right or wrong decision.

Sometimes, the book to read is the one that's on your shelf already. And sometimes, no matter how many books are on that shelf, you feel called to visit the library or the bookstore to find something else. What we have and what we could have are equal options on the menu.

Because saying goodbye hurts, some of us feel compelled to denigrate what's gone before to justify moving on. However, we don't have to burn bridges or ships. Our past can coexist peacefully with our future. Appreciating and honoring our past choices can keep us grounded and reduce our anxiety about what is to come.

Along the same lines, we don't have to squeeze every last bit of toothpaste from the tube before we try a new brand. We aren't obligated to stick with a past choice until the bitter end; most of the time, we can move on whenever we want to.

My mother says, "You can leave the party while you're still having fun." That means that the party doesn't have to be awful in order to leave it, and that you might miss out on continued fun. Staying isn't obligatory, and leaving isn't wrong.

You might feel a grim determination to make a certain arrangement work. You might feel committed to something because you began it. These are beliefs you can question.

Maybe your sense that the grass is greener on the other side is a distraction. You can double down on what you're already doing, the way you're already doing it, even when it's hard. There is certainly merit in that.

So you can stay, or you can go. You can stick with it, or you can quit. You can move to a new city, or not.

It was useful for me to learn how to be happy regardless of where I found myself. How did I learn that? Ironically, through moving and traveling. I made the most of what I had — including the choices I had. In doing so, I discovered that most decisions aren't permanent and there are often far more options than we see at first.

Any endeavor has things to teach you. And that means you don't have to suffer through the one lesson you think you're supposed to learn. What else is on the menu?