by Daryl James

Created on: July 25, 2008

Country living provides a more fulfilling and well-rounded domestic experience than city living. First, country living provides a more balanced atmosphere for mental and spiritual clarity. Second, country living provides for a greater sense of privacy and emotional security. Finally, country living allows for the best options of both worlds.

Thanks to its traditionally slower pace, country living allows individuals a daily opportunity to retreat and maintain perspective on life. While today's society overall continues to clip along at ever-increasing speeds, the rural life, taking its cue from slow-but-steady Mother Nature, seems to be a constant reminder that in the final analysis, there really is no rush. City living certainly possesses a quickening excitement in the eyes of its beholder, but a more fulfilled life, a more balanced life realizes that to appreciate the excitement, there must also be times of steady calm. This calm is quickly realized while driving on an old back road, swinging on a front porch in the still silence of a starlit night, walking through the wisps of an overgrown field. Country living helps to bring us back to a more centered place of mental and spiritual clarity, clarity that serves as a springboard for even greater appreciation of living in general, regardless of the setting.

In addition to its more natural pace, country living allows individuals an opportunity to get away from it all. Even those most enamored with the thrill of city living eventually need an escape from the shoulder to shoulder existence they lead, as evidenced by the countless "weekend" retreats within a short drive of major metropolitan centers. They seek the privacy to open up, to release the constraints of emotional containment that accompany the walls of the city. Country living is the provider of this release, this allowance for self. Only in the wide open spaces of our ever-crowding planet are we able to reflect and let out a deep breath, only when there is nothing to see for miles around can one appreciate the opportunity to look inside. There is less clutter, less intrusion in the rural life, and in this lies a wonderful sense of emotional security and self-certainty.

Finally, country living allows individuals the freedom of choice in their earthly domain. Thanks to evolving technologies and transportation, the country resident has the opportunity to experience the best of both worlds. They are free to start in a place of balance and self-knowing, exploring the result of man's congregation with the peace of mind that they can take it all in and take it all home without the lagging mental and emotional side effects associated with city living. Country living is the steady platform, the sustaining parent of our existence, encouraging us to follow the nature within, to go out and explore our world, to appreciate the wonder and innovation of man's mind, while still reminding us that we always have a home.

Considering these brief thoughts, it should be obvious that country living provides the more appropriate environment in which our species can thrive. The eternal pace, the wide open freedom, and the security of choice are but a few of the incredible offerings that make country living better than city living.

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