The story of humanity is the story of migration. Our oldest roots are in East Africa – from there we moved in all directions until we populated the whole world, to varying degrees of density. Our ancestors left good lands and traveled over harsh landscapes. They navigated coastlines and the open ocean. They moved east and south, and then when the oceans rose they moved back west and north. More recently millions crossed the oceans to come to North America (some voluntarily, others not), and once here we began spreading out.
Why have we moved so much? What makes us leave home and family and strike out for a new land? Some of it is wanderlust. Some is curiosity. Some is desperation, fleeing war and famine. But much of it is simpler: people move for opportunity.
I grew up with mixed signals around moving. There were always new kids in school whose families had just moved to town. Occasionally I’d go back to school in the fall to find that a friend had moved away. One of my grandfathers moved to Chattanooga to take a job as a machinist, while the other came to work on TVA projects in the Great Depression. On the other hand, my parents lived in the same house from two years before I was born until after my father died. I never knew what it was like to pack up and move.
I eagerly went away to college – all of 100 miles away. I had a car and I came home on weekends when I felt like it. As a freshman, that was a lot. As a senior, not so much. My first job was in Nashville – that didn’t work out well and the job was only part of it. I moved back to Chattanooga after two years, met Cathy, got married, built a house on the back of my parents’ property, and expected to stay in Chattanooga forever.
“Forever” turned out to be eight years. The factory where I worked shut down. An opportunity arose in Indiana and I took it, beginning what would be three cross country moves in six years.
In The Chaos Protocols, Gordon White emphasizes the need to move when and where it’s necessary in order to find the opportunities you need. He also points out that people are 35% less mobile than they were at the height of American economic dominance. I remember when IBM stood for “I’ve Been Moved” – when large corporations moved employees around the country every few years. The rise of two-career couples made that more difficult, not to mention the sheer expense of moving households on a regular basis. Being a migrant worker is disruptive to your life and your relationships. It’s no fun even if you’re being paid an executive salary to do it.
But the cold hard fact is that the economy is getting less secure all the time and that’s not likely to change. If there are no good jobs (or not enough good jobs) where you are, move. If housing costs so much you can’t build any savings, move.
And Gordon didn’t say it, but I will: if a place is sucking out your soul, move. I don’t mean move to another country because you don’t like who wins an election (seriously, do you think any President is going to have that much of an impact on your personal life?). I hated Indiana, and not just because I had a bad job there. Pick up today’s job, friends, church, and CUUPS group and drop them in South Bend and I still wouldn’t move back. Do what you have to do, but taking care of yourself and your family means more than just making enough money.
Moving isn’t a panacea. If you don’t have marketable skills (which is not the same thing as a college degree or certifications), moving isn’t likely to help you. If you’re flat broke, moving may be impossible. I’ve never moved without a job in hand and I don’t recommend it, but I know some people who’ve done it successfully… and some who haven’t.
But beyond those few caveats, if you can do a better job of making a decent living in another part of the country, move! Moving brings other benefits too.
Moving reboots your life. The days when you could move to some frontier town and start completely over are long gone. Your high school teachers were right – you do have a permanent record and erasing it is difficult… and beyond the scope of this post. But if you’re not trying to outrun arrest warrants, moving can do a good job of rebooting your life.
Yes, it’s a pain to have to find new doctors, dentists, and hair dressers. But it’s also an opportunity get a fresh take on your health and appearance. It’s a pain to have to find new grocery stores and restaurants. But it’s also an opportunity to try some new foods.
It’s hard to leave friends and family behind, but that can let you get away from relationships that are comfortable but limiting… and Skype and social media make it easier than ever to stay in touch with the ones you really want to keep. I’ve been out of Chattanooga for 21 years now and I’m still in touch with my closest friends from home.
Moving brings new experiences. I lived in Indiana for 2 years 4 months and 9 days… not that I was counting. It was a miserable experience. But because I did, I got to experience real snow in a real winter. I got to go to a Big Ten football game (it was fun, but the atmosphere doesn’t compare to the SEC) and a baseball game at Wrigley Field (which was awesome). I got to do a reading at a “dark poetry” event (mine was prose – I may be a Bard but I still can’t compose verse worth anything at all). Minor things? Yes – and considering how many hours I was working, I was lucky to be able to do that. But they’re things I wouldn’t have been able to do if I had stayed in Chattanooga. The list is far longer for my time in Atlanta (4 years) and Texas (15 years and counting).
Moving helps you declutter. There’s nothing like having to pack up everything and haul it across the country to push you to get rid of the stuff you don’t need. Even if you have professional movers, you’re still going to have to go over it before they start… and you’ll have to unpack it yourself as you set up the new house.
With three cross-country moves in six years, Cathy and I were relatively decluttered when we got to Texas (except for books – I have tons of books, she has more, and neither of us ever get rid of them). I shudder to think about how much stuff we’ll have to throw out when/if we move again.
Moving builds resilience. You never know how strong you are until you have to be strong. When the only thing you have is a job and a place to live, you figure out how to find all the other people and things that make life fun and fulfilling. You realize you can learn your way around a new city. I’ve driven in most of the major cities in the U.S. – other than New York City, none of them scare me.
Moving removes barriers to growth. I first met the God of the Forest in Chattanooga, but I couldn’t see Him for who He is until I moved to Texas. Chattanooga is a great place to live – and a lot more Nature-friendly than here – but I have so much baggage there. So many expectations from others that carried over into my expectations for myself. I began my Pagan journey while I was living there, but I had to make three cross-country moves before I was ready to get serious.
Could I have become the Druid and priest I am today if I had stayed at home? It’s possible, but it seems very, very unlikely. I needed to lose all the hometown baggage first.
Moving is a young person’s game. With all that said, and with the full acknowledgement that anything can happen in the more-than-a-few years left before retirement, I hope I don’t have to move again, at least not cross-country. I want to make one more move, 30 miles west from McKinney to Denton. That will give us a chance to declutter and to be closer to our friends in our old age.
Moving is physically exhausting. And it’s expensive, particularly if you’ve gathered too much stuff (see the paragraph on decluttering). I lost a considerable amount of money on my move from Indiana to Atlanta. I made it back in a couple years, and in any case getting out of there was worth whatever it cost. But the primary purpose of moving for greater opportunity is to help your financial situation, not make it worse, and if you’re close to retirement you may not have enough years to make it work out.
Of course, given the harsh realities of the job market, you may not have a choice. But if you do, settle in somewhere well before you get too old to demonstrate your resilience one more time.
I can still remember crying softly as I drove away from our first house for the last time. This was home, and I thought I was going to be there forever. It didn’t work out that way. But if it hadn’t been for that first big move, and the two that followed it, my life would have been much poorer – economically and spiritually.
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