The Pros and Cons of Wilderness Living

Okay, after a visit to the in-laws in the Chicagoland area, I am full of ponders about where I'm living. I have developed a list of PROs and CONs.

The suburbs are full of beautiful homes, side walks and street lights. Wow, the side walks and lights are awesome amenities! That makes the walking and biking easier and more pleasant in some ways. CON for the wilderness. On the other hand, the beautiful houses are very close together, at least compared to the wilderness. There are people and cars everywhere all the time. PRO for the wilderness - PRIVACY! another PRO for the wilderness, no one cares where my dog poops! Oh and the beautiful environment might just balance the pavement and lights... PRO for the wilderness!

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The view of the Kansas sky this evening when I walked! No cars, people or traffic noises!

Suburbs are very convenient to wonderful grocery stores and liquor stores and millions of other stores. I noticed that I was much closer to many conveniences, potential CON for the wilderness. However, with traffic considerations, the time spent is essentially the same - neutral. Traffic is a bad thing by itself so it actually turns into a PRO for the wilderness. No traffic jams or slow traffic. My drive to Lawrence or Topeka is a straight 30-40 minutes at about 65 miles per hour the whole way!

Suburbs are (supposed to be) close to big cities. This could be a plus for jobs, art, museums, music and culture. However, not all suburbs are all that close to the big city. The in-laws are a solid hour and a half from Chicago, longer at certain times. I'm sure there are some of these cultural things in the burbs but then there are some of those things within 30-40 minutes from the wilderness. So neutral.

I'm a big fan of outdoor time. Gardening, walking, lounging, bon-firing, biking. I'd say this is technically neutral since you can do these things in the suburbs However, I prefer doing these outdoor things in the wilderness as there seem to be fewer (no) rules about them! Yay, plant weird things and fail to weed? No, problem!

Well, as I write this I think how obvious it is that I love where I live however, when I first started to ponder there was some wistful, wishing for some of those suburban amenities! I am thankful that everyone is different and that diversity rules the world. If everyone knew how awesome the wilderness was then it would be full of people! Why do you love where you live? Do you? Do conveniences balance beauty? Which is more important for you? How did you decide? What do you value and do you take the time to feel thankful for what you have? If you don't like where you live, what will you do to fix it? Hmmmmm... Have a ponder filled day!


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