If you’re Single (or not), Love Your Home
I’ve been pretty much single for the past 6 years. I had a thought yesterday while out running errands, that for those of us who are single and seeking, we might as well offer some love to our hometown. I’ve been doing this ever since I moved to the Pacific Northwest (Seattle in 1995 and Portland 2002-present). This region is pretty easy to love and has caught many peoples’ eyes and hearts. I’ve never lived anywhere in the world (maybe besides NYC) where I’ve heard more people say “I love Portland”. My previous partner and I used to say this out loud frequently, and it’s still true. I love Portland. I also love Portlandia 🙂 Feel free to comment below. One day I’ll write an article on that, and perhaps it’s all related.
As someone who has chosen ideation as a profession, I think in concepts a lot. Sometimes I consider myself an amateur sociologist. An inventor. Here are some of my ideas over the years (feel free to borrow from this list in any way you choose – my work is Albert-source 🙂 The concept I want to share here is the value of loving your place. We all hear the message on repeat that you have to start with loving yourself. I believe that is true and it probably makes our lives go better and makes us more attractive for prospective matches. But perhaps we can walk and chew gum at the same time. I can love myself (eat well, rest, hydrate, exercise, etc.) and also spend time loving my town.
Ways to Love Where You Live
My version of this has been this list of ways to make my neighborhood and region more livable. I use my marketing skills to share these ideas with anyone who will listen. The result has been a quieter, sweeter slice of paradise than I envisioned when I started. A friend once offered to bring me to his town to teach his town council what I was putting out into the universe. That didn’t happen (yet – looking at you, Antioch, CA), but maybe one day. And that’s left me to keep trying to make where I live better and better. It’s worked. My neighborhood of Richmond, Portland, Oregon is kinda dreamy. Maybe it always was. Maybe what I did didn’t have the effect I think it did. There’s no easy way to quantify what I’ve done/said/activated towards. But I have a hunch that even lessening the amount of gas-powered leaf blowers has been a huge help to our community.
As an aside, I have this idea of creating a postcard that says – here are 11 ways to make your paradise a little more paradisical. I know there are great challenges in our midst – homelessness/drug addiction/mental health problems. There are people working on these issues and everything I’m suggesting in this article will just make that work go better. Do you think people who live on the streets are helped by glaring LED lights or gas-powered leaf blowers? No, it just makes their lives even worse. So, back to that postcard. There are thousands of places that could be improved by easy changes that people can make – see the article I link to above. Now back to loving our City.
If you’re single and seeking – by loving your home you’re exercising your heart. You’re possibly being out in the world picking up garbage; planting a tree; starting a new community garden; removing graffiti – and who knows who you’ll meet while you do that. Maybe you’ll decide to serve on a neighborhood council or run for office as a way to share your love. Maybe it could be through mentoring a small business on how to improve their lighting or helping paint a wall.
And just like everything in life, you may make a mistake. Or two. Not everyone is up for receiving help. Not every offer you make in the world is received in the way you’d hope. Don’t give up. Write back if any of this resonates or if you have ideas to add. Thanks!
For a better world,
Albert
PS – I’ve been adding songs to the end of my newsletters and so … here ya go!
PPS – I’m going to expand into ways to show your love to local businesses here.
