Readers and friends alike have told me they can’t picture me living in the city.
They associate me with skiing, wood-burning stoves, and wilderness canoe trips.

What they don’t know is that I fell in love with Boston at the age of 12 and chose Tufts University for my undergraduate years as a result. They don’t know I bought season tickets just for me to The Theater in the Round and the Minnesota Opera when I was in high school. They don’t realize I have traveled in 43 countries, spent lots of that time in cities, and loved every minute of it.

And, if that weren’t the case, if I had never really experienced city life at all, wouldn’t it be about time?!

I think the lesson here is to check our assumptions about others. Too often people put other people in tidy little boxes based on ridiculously little information:

• Without knowing their past
• Without understanding their aspirations
• Forgetting they are capable of changing!

My mother was notorious for the latter, saying things like, “but I thought you really liked tennis” when I quit to join an ice hockey team. I kept messing up her tidy little boxes.

And then we need to check our assumptions about ourselves!

• Does living in a great place mean you could never be happy living someplace completely different?
• Does a penchant for one activity mean you will pursue it forever?
• Should we be handcuffed by our current capabilities and job?

No way!

Instead of boxing ourselves and others into corners, let’s encourage each other to get out and try new things. The world is vast and wonderful. Opportunities abound. Let your imagination soar! What’s your equivalent of my Urban Experiment?

Read Part 5 of The Urban Experiment!