Your hometown will always be where your heart is, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay there forever. In some ways, staying too close to home can actually hold you back from achieving your full potential. After leaving your hometown, you inevitably change in several ways.
- You become more adventurous. When you’re away from your family and everyone who’s known you forever, you’re liberated and naturally become more adventurous. Enjoy your new-found freedom; it’ll make you feel alive in a way you’ve never known before.
- You become more open to different cultures. Especially if you grew up in a very small town, you’ll discover culture in ways you never knew it before after moving away. It’ll be a bit overwhelming at first, but you’ll find yourself becoming more open to it over time, and you’ll discover all kinds of cool new things you never knew existed before.
- You’ll be less dependent on the comforts of home. Your hometown will always hold a certain comfort, but you shouldn’t be dependent on it. Once you break free, you’ll discover how to live anywhere and how to deal with culture shock.
- You’ll become more independent. It’s easy to stay dependent (in some ways) on your family and life-long community when they’re still nearby. After you move to a new city, you’re forced into discovering true independence, but that’s a good thing. Embrace the change; it’s good for you.
- You’re more driven to succeed because it’s sink or swim. When you’re in a new city and your support system is either gone or far away, you’re more incentivized to make sure you succeed. It’s sink or swim time, and no one wants to sink.
- You appreciate your hometown more when you go visit. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. When you visit your hometown after being away for a while, it’s going to seem a whole lot better than when you left.
- Your relationship with your family can improve, thanks to the “buffer zone.” No matter how much you love your family, you need time apart from them and space or they’ll drive you crazy. Buffer zones are great because they allow you to gain the necessary space in a constructive and beneficial manner.
- You become proud of where you’re from and strive to represent. When you’re still living near the mothership and surrounded by people who are also from there, your sense of hometown pride can be lessened just because it’s so readily available. In a new city, you’ll probably want to represent where you’re from a little more because it’s suddenly more novel than it was when you were home and everyone was like you.
