In many ways, it might feel as though there’s not all that much to understand. You know what you like and what you might want out of life, and that puts you in the best position to decide where to go next. While that’s all true, sometimes contradictory impulses can lead to a nagging sense of uncertainty. Life is full of these contradictions, and wanting two things out of your life that seem completely opposed can leave you unsure of where you should go next – which of these you should opt for first or which you might abandon entirely.
Rural Living vs. City Living
One of the biggest divisions here that people experience is when it comes to where they want to live. Naturally, people like different environments, and common factors such as where their friends live are going to impact their choice – but at the same time, there is a division between rural living and city living due to the inherent differences in these spaces.
If you’re someone who doesn’t have a specific preference, you might find that you’ve lived in both environments at one point or another, and find that both have their own appeal. While this can help you to live a more flexible and varied lifestyle, it can create some difficulty in planning where you want to go next – especially if where you go next is where you might look to settle down for a longer period of time.
The city, on the face of it, has everything that you need – especially if your friends do live close to you. A city has transport links, restaurants and bars; it has more services and activities and professionals in close proximity to you – why would you give that up once you grow so accustomed to having all of it? Because a city also places you right in the thick of noise and pollution – things which can sometimes take more of a toll on you than you expect. There’s no right answer, only different benefits, but if you moving out of the city, it’s important to get a sense of what kind of life you would want to live in a more rural area (how far you would want to be from a city, for example).
The Risk of Overplanning
Having some idea of what you want out of life can be helpful in deciding what you want to do when and how you’re going to plan that (such as when you go travelling, for instance). However, being too restrictive with the plans that you’re assigning for your own life might lead you to a situation where you’re forcing yourself into a box that you don’t need to be in. If you miss a target, or if the present moment of your life begins to take on a different, yet equally happy, shape to the one that you had in mind, you might get anxious or beat yourself up. However, while it’s natural to become attached to these ideas of your life that you’ve had, they aren’t real in any tangible sense and there’s no need to live by them so completely.
Learning how to shift your mindset here might just be a matter of learning how to relax and relinquish control. This can be very difficult, but if you manage it successfully, it can be something that you find incredibly liberating – especially when you encounter those inevitable parts of life that are unexpected.
Interpersonal Connections
A difficulty that can sometimes arise is when a direction that you want to take with your life stands at odds with those who are close to you. This sounds dramatic, but the way in which it often occurs is purely logistical. If, for instance, you are in a situation where all of your friends live close to you and your whole group enjoys regularly meeting up, that’s something valuable that you might not want to give up. However, you might also feel the urge to go travelling for a long period of time, or you might want to move to the countryside.
Feeling as though your own plans are at odds with that of your friends can be difficult, as you might struggle to find the right balance between doing what you want and also keeping them as involved in your life as you would like. However, it’s important to think about what you do actually want to do, and how these changes will often only either be temporary or will lead to a different situation that could be equally preferable.
