Last fall, I made a post about the struggle I had been experiencing with defining a “home” for myself.  I spent much of 2014 moving around. The previous many, many years I had lived in just one place – the longest time I had ever lived in one place – and preparing to leave physically and (I thought) emotionally proved to be as difficult as expected.

Of course, you must know how much I really enjoy TED talks and this particular TED talk, by Pico Iyer titled “Where is home?” really helped me come to terms with the struggle I had been going through. So I wanted to share it here – to both archive it and hopefully, maybe…it can help you if you’re going through a similar struggle, too.

Some of the more powerful takeaways I had from this particular talk…

• “Which place goes deepest inside you, and where do you try to spend most of your time?”
  • This really means a lot to me. I may live in one place but as I mentioned in the post I pinged back to above, the place that my heart is, my mind is, my energy is spent…is oftentimes different.

• “My home would have to be whatever I carried around inside me.”
  • Interesting mindset, really because it contrasts with what I think. I love traveling but I’m not THAT transient of a person. I do like to have a place to go back to – but I know others who don’t really mind not having a place to go back to as much. At least that’s what they say.

“[For my grandparent’s], their sense of community was assigned to them at birth – and nowadays, at least some of us can choose our sense of home, create our sense of community, fashion our sense of self, and in so doing maybe step a little beyond some of the black and white divisions of grandparent’s age.”

• I love this reference to technology – that shift is an important one in our lives in this 21st century. Duh. I’m grateful for this malleability of the definition and experience and interaction that a person can have with the concept of home. But at the same time – obviously – it gives me a lot of pause. Growing up, you could potentially be a “military brat“or you could have lived in the same house your entire life. Who knows. But your experience will vary – obviously.

Toward the end he even goes into a little bit of importance about mindfulness- something I’ve been trying to practice more, myself, since last September. And, to conclude, Pico said one thing that I’ve always felt but never exactly been able to articulate as well as he does.

Movement ultimately only has a meaning if you have a home to go back to.