Life is Elsewhere

In the third chapter of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, he talks about his desire to leave his hometown of Fairview, Alberta:

“I wanted to be elsewhere. I wasn’t the only one. Everyone who eventually left the Fairview I grew up in knew they were leaving by the age of twelve. I knew. My wife, who grew up with me on the street our families shared, knew. The friends I had who did and didn’t leave also knew, regardless of which track they were on. There was an unspoken expectation in the families of those who were college-bound that such a thing was a matter of course. For those from less-educated families, a future that included university was simply not part of the conceptual realm. It wasn’t for lack of money, either. Tuition for advanced education was very low at that time, and jobs in Alberta were plentiful and high-paying. I earned more money in 1980 working at a plywood mill than I would again doing anything else for twenty years. No one missed out on university because of financial need in oil-rich Alberta in the 1970s.”

Growing up in a small town in B.C., I can relate to this on a deep level. Southern B.C. is a more pleasant than Northern Alberta, but you still are vary aware of the fact that there is not much for you there. As far back as I can remember, I knew my life would be elsewhere.

The area I grew up in is beautiful and an ideal destination for many, but when you are young you feel isolation and oppression. It is much nicer than the desolate and dark Fairview that Peterson describes, but it had the same effect on me and my friends. For us, we knew that as we finished high school we would move away and start our lives elsewhere. There was little opportunity outside of the service industry, working for the government, or working in a trade. We all knew that we were biding our time before we left and never moved back.

Going to university for me was not an educational decision it was a ritual for escape. I moved to a city in a different province and life began. I knew that time that I would return to work for our family business in the summer, but I would never live there again full-time.

It took me a long time to realize that there are people who grow up not wanting to leave home—people that grow up thinking they will build a life where they are. For me, staying was never really an option. I could have, but I never once considered it. When you are young and growing up in a small town in Canada you know that to make something of yourself, to have ambition, means you have to leave—you have to escape. You know your life won’t truly start until you leave, so you orient your life to the idea that you need to go out and see the world.

There are people I knew growing up who stayed in the same way I left. They didn’t decide, for them, they never even considered leaving. I’m sure many of them are satisfied with life, but there is something about it that I don’t understand. Something different between people who grow up wanting to stay where they are and people that grow up knowing life is elsewhere.