socks and the city*
When we're in a place which feels just right to us, or in a friendship group we delight in and draw comfort from, or in workplace that sets us alight with motivation and joy, it's because our values are being met. 'Values' is a useful notion that encapsulates for me the ideas and beliefs that really matter to us. Our values are informed by and form part of our personal ethics, politics (small 'p'), moral code, all that kind of deep, 'who we are' stuff.
People use different techniques to judge if their deep-rooted values are being met. For some it's based a gut feeling, for others it's a certain knowledge based on deliberate personal strategising. And some have the delightful gift of being able to encapsulate it in a few words. They can come up with a great rule of thumb, which takes all this serious values stuff and turns it into a memorable and meaningful, even witty, phrase.
I met a very lovely woman at the weekend. She exudes joy, warmth and contentment. Some years ago she and her family decided to move out of London with no idea of where they might end up. She was telling me about all the places she visited which were OK, but didn't feel like home. She told me, 'it had to be somewhere my kids could wear odd socks and no one would mind'. I'm happy to say she ended up in the town which also meets my 'place to live' values. It's a place where you can be who you are. But my new acquaintance put it so better than that, don't you think?
*Hebden Bridge is actually a small town. But I wasn't going to let that stand in the way of a good headline!




