Should I Go or Should I Stay?
By: Tim Porter
Tags: Work Life Balance, Pandemic, San Francisco, Life Lessons, Priorities

How the pandemic forces us to confront our priorities

An ex-colleague, a smart guy with a better mind than mine, posed a question:

* Has working remotely during the pandemic caused you to consider moving to someplace simpler and less costly? “Around 20 million Americans are planning to leave dense and costly metros like New York and San Francisco and move to cheaper cities.” Are you one of them?

A few thoughts:

* First, we must acknowledge that the array of work-life options brought to the fore by the pandemic are those of the professional class. Most workers in retail, agriculture, the building trades and the ever widening and therefore ill-defined sector we call service have few choices. They work where the work is, they wear uniforms, and their schedules are determined for them. Even some professionals, medical personnel, for example, encounter similar restrictions.

* That said, I agree that we will see more ex-urban migration among those whose can maintain their lives and those of their families from more remote locations. Why pay for what you don’t need, don’t want and don’t use?

* Simplicity is attractive — less traffic, lower prices, fewer people per square block. Everyone should love their neighbor, but not everyone wants their neighbor to be up in their business. Simplicity has a price, though. In general: fewer services (both retail and, for we of a certain generation, medical); less diversity (culturally and racially); and a sense of being the tail and not the dog (thereby revealing my own prejudice). As someone who has lived in rural Nevada and at the end of dirt road in Mexico, a simpler life, as wonderful as it can be, at times triggers the urge to flee to Midtown Manhattan just to hear the comforting thump-thump-thump of the heartbeat of humanity.

My wife, who was a newspaper editor who became a corporate CEO (something to be said for San Francisco and upward mobility), and I (an ex-newspaper editor who embraced downward mobility early) have had several long discussion about decamping from our suburban cabin north of the Golden Gate. Ditch what’s left of the mortgage (a lot), escape from California taxes, find a spot with breathing room and a strong internet connection. She’s working from her downstairs desk now and me from my upstairs one, so why not?

Here’s why: Neither of us can come up with another place besides Marin County that, even with its prices, traffic and attitude, gives us more of what we want. In our non-working hours (few for her, many for me), we hike and run on the mountain trails above the house. She paddles across the Bay. I stroll the Golden Gate. We buy food from farmers, but have full-size groceries at our beck. The air is clean and scented with salt (when the fires aren’t burning ). And, most importantly, we are involved in an extensive community whose members range from Salvadoran immigrants to corporate governance boards. Some of the community could be preserved virtually, but most of it requires physical presence and would be lost with a move elsewhere.

Then there is this: I am an old dog, and while I still teach myself new tricks I am not as thrilled to do so as I once was.

Honestly, as I age –a process that seems to be accelerating — I think less about moving to a simpler place and more to one most folks might consider complicated, such as Manhattan or Paris. Consider this: No car is necessary, food is found on the block, parks abound, no 95-year-old house to maintain, healthcare a cab ride away.

One small benefit of the pandemic and our collective year in the house has been the forced self-examination of our lives. Many people have been obligated to ask a dire question: What can I do without, what can my family do without? Some of those who are more fortunate, who can consider the questions of where to live and how to work, will make changes and perhaps their migration away from the coasts will help revitalize communities whose fortunes declined as those of the technology and finance centers of the coasts flourished.

As for me, I’ll be here on the hillside, thinking about eating a bagel in New York or a croissant in Paris while I walk amid the redwoods.