Ready for a “Here’s Yet Another Way You’ve Been Taking Your Life for Granted” hypothetical situation to ponder? Sure you are, Sport!

Here goes: You just found out you need to leave your town, exactly one month from today. Let’s pretend this imaginary exodus has more to do with something invigorating (like being transferred to your dream city to work at your dream job), and less to do with something un-fun (like being extradited to start a rather lengthy prison sentence). Getting the “pack your bags, baby!” call is a hypothetically good thing in this game… but wait. How do you feel about leaving your town?

Disclaimer: if you hate everything about your current city/ town/ hamlet/ zip code, this little visualization is going to fall a bit flat. I’ll meet you at the last paragraph for a wrap-up. (And also, should you maybe be looking at getting out of Dodge? To like your life a bit more?)

When the hypothetical swirliness of “we get to move to London!!” subsides, you’d likely find yourself driving around your current town, realizing that maybe you’ve been taking it for granted.

This just happened to my friend Michael, who shared the following story with me:

“I had a really eye-opening experience this month. After 10 years in Vienna, my landlord texted me to tell me he’s going to give me a three-month notice on my lease. It sent me into a no-sleep spiral of ‘wait, what do I still want to see?’ and ‘Which of my friends am I going to see and when to say bye?’. There was a happy end: thanks to Austrian law he can’t just terminate my contract before the end of 2026 – BUT, it truly put things into perspective for me, what with the good old ‘oh I can always do that next month’ mentality.”

A word about that “’oh I can always do that next month’ mentality”… there might not be a next month. You might perish by then! You might be transferred to Nebraska! You might move in with your significant other who lives three cities away! You might finally succumb to your desire to live off the grid in the mountains! You might enter the Witness Protection Program (probably in Nebraska)!

I have worked with countless clients who have relocated for their careers, and what do they do in the weeks before they leave for Phoenix or New Jersey or Munich? They live like tourists in their own city. Their eyes open wide as they realize they’ve been taking Denver, for example, for granted. “I haven’t even been to the art museum,” they confess, breathlessly, in a tizzy to jam-pack all they assumed they’d get around to, one day. Do you need to explore your own city, as though you had only seven weeks left to enjoy it? What sights would you see? What famous hot dog joints would you visit? Who would you be sure to spend time with before you moved away? (Yes, this paragraph was from page 75 in my book!)

This post has seemingly been sponsored by the Tourism Boards of Cities and Towns Everywhere. Sure, I love the idea of you getting out there and dining at Crabby Bob’s Crab Shack and visiting the ceramics museum and taking that local hike you’ve always wondered about but never made time for. Sure, I love the idea of you having brunch with those neighbors you take for granted and going for happy hour with the friend you think you can just have wine with any old time. Yay! Life is getting lived in this imaginary “Live Like a Tourist in Your Own City” thought experiment.

But the real lesson is that this is a metaphor for how we treat life in general, isn’t it? We take our cities for granted because we think we can enjoy all that they have to offer “later.” We take friendships for granted because we think we can have a meaningful catch-up call “any old time.” We take our family members for granted because we think we can visit “at the next holiday.” We take our own plans and dreams and goals for granted because we think we can take the first step “soon.”

Except.

Tomorrow is a premise, not a promise.

And what about the quality of our lives today—what about living like we mean it now, rather than postponing our good intentions? Doesn’t today deserve a visit to the famous hot dog cart? Doesn’t today deserve a call to a friend, or a visit to the local exhibition, or meaningful action towards a dream you’ve been harboring?

So let’s live as though we’ve been warned we will not live forever… and let’s maybe put on a tourist hat this weekend in our respective towns? I’m going to visit that cute little cactus garden in Palm Springs. What’re you going to do to prove you’re not taking your city/ entire life for granted?