You may have heard this saying before: “If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.”
This idea resounds with me, because it can be taken so many different ways:
- Have you been living in the same city all your life, yet can’t stop wishing you could relocate someplace new? If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.
- Have you spent years in the same career, only to realize you find no joy or satisfaction in your work? If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.
- Have you come to recognize toxic traits in your own behavior that you inherited from a parent or grandparent? If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.
- Have you finally landed your “dream role” after years of school, hard work, and careful planning, but now find yourself yearning for something else? If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.
- Have you resigned yourself to always being overweight, because it runs in the family and it seems no one is able to avoid it? If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.
- Have you grown up within a particular culture or ideology that no longer aligns with your own core values and beliefs? If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.
Of course, I’m not saying that change, transition, or relocation is easy, or is even the right answer for every situation. Quitting isn’t necessarily the best remedy for discontentment. Sometimes it’s not your circumstances that need to change, but yourself. With time and effort, you may even be able to do what Mary Engelbreit says, and “Bloom where you’re planted.”
But the point is, no matter how deeply rooted you are in a certain career, community, culture, or lifestyle, you don’t have to be stuck. You are not a tree.
