As most of you already know, I will be taking a big step in life this week. I am moving to another state. My wife and I arrived at this decision after much thought. We are both from Arkansas and we love this place. Arkansas is beautiful and natural. Why would anyone ever want to leave? It really comes down to two things.
Number 1: As beautiful as Arkansas is, there is no tech industry here. Arkansas tends to move at a little slower pace then the rest of the world. That’s not a problem if you grow rice or make potato chips but for technology, it’s like shooting yourself in the foot. I have already peaked in this area. I don’t want to be a big fish in a small pond with no room to grow. I want to learn and grow at my own pace be it fast or slow. I want to control my destiny.
Number 2: My wife’s parents will live minutes away from us. Amara is very close to her mom and I am too. I couldn’t have hoped for better in-laws. This isn’t one of those “honey, get your mom to stop nagging me” kind of situations. I really do love her parents and I feel closer to them then I do to my own family. I mean no offence to my family but we just aren’t close. My family fits Arkansas. They will probably be buried within 50 miles of the place where they were born. I feel the need to carve my own path through life and my family doesn’t.
There are some negatives to moving. My son will probably not know much of his grandmother (would he have anyway?) I have gotten very close with some of my friends here in Arkansas. I will miss them greatly. I do feel that we will be able to maintain a close friendship across any distance but you always loose something with distance. We are techie so we will make sure that we stay in contact. I’m not worried about that. It’s just that when your whole family starts to become friends with another whole family, you’re going to miss just having dinner together. The same goes for my wife’s sister’s family. We have grown very close to the O’neils and we will be very sad to leave them. My son and his cousins are very close in age and I wish that he could grow up knowing them. Maybe he still will. Only time will tell.
I am excited about this specific job. I will be making more, have more room for growth, less upfront responsibility, and the people running this company actually know what is going on. My old job was not a bad job. I actually enjoyed the work. It was the management that was the problem. They had no clue how to successfully run a company. This was a creative environment, not a factory. Programmers and Designers are not “Resources”. The company will be nothing without them. They will understand that very clearly when they have no “Resources” left. When your employees are so afraid that their checks will bounce that they all race to see who can get to your bank first to make sure that they can get cash to go deposit into their bank you obviously have a problem. I may be the only one moving across the country but I will not be the last to leave. I am just glad that I got out when I did. Do you remember Roosevelt’s proposed second bill of rights? Well, that’s what I’m shooting for.