Relocating to a new house should be something that is exciting. So then why do so many people get stressed out over it? Take the example of a corporate relocation. When my father worked for Avis, the corporate headquarters was in Garden City, New York (on Long Island). Then, for whatever reason, Avis decided to relocate its corporate headquarters next door in New Jersey. My father, traditionally hating New Jersey (as does any “true” New Yorker), had to make the decision as to whether or not he would relocate with the company or quit his job. He decided that, at the time, it would be better to relocate.
Because of where Avis was relocating to within New Jersey, it would have been almost a two hour commute with traffic for my father to get to work from our house on Long Island versus the fifteen to twenty minute commute he had endured previously. What Avis was offering its employees for the inconvenience of relocating its headquarters were condominiums. My father didn t have to sell our house and force the entire family to move to New Jersey because what he did was he purchased a condominium in New Jersey and would sometime stay at his condo in New Jersey during the week when he had to work and then come home on the weekends. This worked out for a while until he realized that it was perhaps time to move on to a different and more fulfilling career as a lawyer.
The point of this story is to show that relocating doesn t always have to be a bad thing. In fact, for many people, relocating, at least where employment is involved, is an extremely promising and rewarding thing. Usually (not always) relocation s are totally paid for by whatever corporation or business enterprise that you work for because of the inconvenience it entails. Additionally, relocating means an opportunity to start fresh and can sometimes indicate your status and value to a company. After all, if a company is willing to pay for you and your family to relocate to a different part of the country, than why wouldn t you? Obviously, it means that you are an extremely valuable team player and an asset to them!
There are also those people who shy away from relocating to a different part of the country because of the inconvenience. Perhaps you have small children who are in the middle of going through elementary school and who are settled and have plenty of friends and family in the area. This is often a tough choice for those people who have families because either way, whether you go and make arrangements for your family to stay put (such as what my father did initially), it is still breaking the family structure up. It is up to you to make the decision as to what is best for your particular situation at the time. In the case of many people, a relocation can mean significant opportunities for career advancement, which may far outweigh the temporary feelings of loss when forced to move to a new area.