Growing up in a remote suburb of Mumbai, I was always in love with the tiny little town I lived in (Ambivili). It was laid back, almost rustic, but at the same time it happened to be only 45 minutes of train ride to Mumbai - the commercial capital of India. Multiple times a year, I would visit relatives in Pune & Madras. But back then, I never liked one place over the other. Every city seemed to be the same, the people were same, the weather was the same and they all boasted of the same tourist spots. There were no special attraction of the beach over the mountain or the bay over the temperate weather. You liked the place so long as you liked the people you visited !! This might not be true today, but when you are 10 you don't care for geographical diversity.
Moving over to US, the first 2 years were spent in almost similar pastoral settings of State College. It was a big place by Indian standards, but by US standards it was nothing more than college town. It was prettier than what I had ever seen before in my life, and I made some really good friends too. It was an ideal place to live as a cash strapped graduate students. I always heard my city slick friends express disdain for such small towns, but I never understood them till I moved to one. Moving into a huge city has been a totally different experience, and I felt I matured much more in 2 months in a city than in 2 years spent in a small town.
Also I had always thought that the weather was the same everywhere. It is either too hot or too cold or it rains, its never pleasant. This myth was blown into pieces after I moved to Southern California. Now I have started discerning difference between 3-4F, or for that matter between 20% humidity and 65% humidity, cause I had never lived in a dry region before! The freedom to get up any day of the year and go out to jog or play tennis wearing just T-shirts and shorts, is something I think precious. Some people still don't understand why I rave so much about this fact, but in most cases these are people who have never experienced such a phenomena.
When I was looking for a job for the first time in US, I was open to any geographical locations, may it be Fargo, ND or Topeka, KS. Place didn't matter then, what mattered was career. But somewhere down the lines, I got lucky and landed in Los Angeles and I started looking at a location in a whole different light.
As I post tonite, I am balking on a great career opportunity because I don't want to move from Los Angeles to Houston. I never liked Texas from my first visit to the city and least of all Houston. I always thought of Houston as a place which is more like a Los Angeles devoid of Mountains, Beaches, Great weather but yet having traffic problems & pollution - the downsides of Los Angeles. I guess there are things in life more important than just a career, it's called enjoying life! So should place have such a big emphasis on our life ? Most people would anwer with a emphatic NO, and I am still unsure!
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ive noticed that desis would prefer the job-profile over place .. non-desis definitely weight the place/activities around it when deciding between job offers .. maybe your americanization is well and truly on its way :-)
they say base your decisions on three things: location, location and location. :)honestly I would go with the career growth first. the reason being I have seen one tends to fall in love with whatever place they end up living in. Its called aclimatizing. You adapt and then you find little things that you like and enjoy. You have friends and you start making things called memories and associations. have you ever lived ina place long enough that you do not recall with fondness? every place i've been in I have grown to love. And although after I move on I may like the new place more I still remember the last place with fondness.
Go with your gut feeling. if you analyze LA you'll find a lot of reasons to move on. say for example the cost of living. And although I never liked houston who knows. maybe you'll find a reason to love it.
Good luck with your decision. But no matter where you go take your blog with you :)
Go as per career and then justify the beauty of the city. You can always do a post like how insurance rates are cheap in Houston compared to West Coast and hence how good a city is...yada, yada, yada!
Ha... when I started the first paragraphs.. I was thinking like... here he goes again..... LA is heaven and blah blah blah... but now you have a reason to talk abt it...
Well u know right....... you have to pose it as a non-linear optimization problem with constraints and then solve it using your matlab skills... you will know the answer......
But frankly man.... place is just as important ra.... definetly and congratulations.. will tty and get the details... :)
Subbu.
@Nice Try...Ur kinda right, but desis in US due to their Visa status and job availability dont have the luxury of non-desis to weigh in options like locations...I am pretty sure that the first generation and second generations desis rely a lot on locations and benefits..
@M..Thanks for you advice...Its true that u always end up liking the place u live..and given the cost of living in CAL, I dont expect to spend a lot of time here...infact had it been San Fransico, Settle or Chicago or some North Eastern city, I might have moved...but Houston makes it very hard...
@JC..No state taxes, cheap housing and 1/3rd cost of living...this r somethings where Texas definitely beats California..
@Subbu..yup..Place is also important..i wish such decisions could be easily resolved with Matlab :))..will talk to u over the weekend..
Nice post. No matter where you live you can make your Life interesting and exciting if only you are with the right people..
Hey..subbu!! i tried the non-linear optimization in matlab and it did work :p..your question is as lame as asking would vulcanization of rubber help solve the war on iraq? Machaan...if you feel at some point of time you would need more than just weather, you move..if you are satisfied with your job and the weather is awesome too..enjoy ..play cricket..lie on the beach ...organize games to fill your pockets..etc..etc...
Since I visited US, I've known that if I ever live there for a long period of time, it has to be California and nowhere else.
And what is wrong with wanting to stay on in a place? Why force ourselves to somewhere we arent even neutral about to begin with? Dont fix it if it aint broken my friend...
@I am me...I totally agree, people are more important than the place, but then again if you are open enough, you can always make good friends wherever u live..
@Totti...Its not weather..its more to do with liking and enjoying place...for example would u choose a position in Santa Clara or a small village like Folsom ??
@Casablanca...thanks for seconding me on Cal ;))...but then again CAL is expensive and you cannot decided on living here for long, cos real estate, cost of living etc erode your money bank....but I have better alternative to that, win a lottery !!
Unless you plan to stay in USA forever I think you should move if the other job offers you better career prospects
I think, I would have gone with job satisfaction first then location. Once, you start at a new place. You start discovering that place. Start doing activites which that place permits. Ofcourse, if you are not in California, and up north, you cannot play tennis after fall. But then you can skate, ski etc. So, activities are always available. But activities come after you go from work. So I would rather think about work and my career.
Given a choice, I would still prefer the east coast to the west coast. But thats me. People around you and career matter a lot, rather than location. They can still make you warm on a cold gloomy day.
@Rohan...Actually I can use the same fact to make a counter-arguement...I dont plan on staying for long, so I believe in staying somewhere I enjoy the most...if you had long term plans you would try to move to a place where you can afford to buy a house, and california is definitely not one such place
@Kausum...true u can always find some activity or the other to do...but isn't it also true that someplace have more activities to do than other...and yes people are always above place..
Ok, I dont wanna start a fight here, but I have lived 2 years in East coast and 1 year on the west, and I have travelled exhaustively to 24 different states, and although east coast is very very pretty, there are some things only the west can offer...but thats just my personal opinion...no offence
My dear, stop talking like a 40 year old who has to worry about taxes and real estate prices. Just live where you like it... and live well. That is my motto :)
The main point of life is "living it". So it all depend on how you define "living" for yourself. If you define it solely as having a great career then that should be the only thing that should matter to you. You should then be prepared to take a job in Somalia if that is a great career opportunity.
I guess society in general teaches us to define "living" in terms of short term objectives (like that great job or degree or exam or whatever). When that passes we tend to jump on to the next short term thing. Its only after most short-term things are done with and we are physically drained to take on any more... that we start thinking of "living" as the totality of states from cradle to the grave.
@Casa..Ur motto is my motto too...
@Tanushree...thats the greatest attribute of a human being...he can adjust to any condition he wants...but if u have an alternative u dont have to force it upon urself to adjust to not so preferrable clime...
@Anon...You make a great point..Unfortunately life is so consumed with such short self propogating aims that only when your past them do you reflect on their futility and regret not having enjoyed life when you had loadsa time...
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