How to Feel One With Your City

Get a job as soon as possible. Become a part of the flow. Contribute. Create Value.

Cities can be gruelling, but if you get involved and contribute, you gain the benefit of these hives of human productivity. Halfpoint/Shutterstock

When was the first time you felt connected to the life of a city?

When I was younger, I could see the busyness of the world around me—the high office buildings, the businesses, the traffic, the construction, the people rushing off to do things. But it all felt foreign and unrelatable.

These were things that other people did and places where other people went. I had no inkling of what it was like inside those things. As a child and teenager, I was a net consumer, taking what was given to me and not contributing all that much.

I had to get a job before I started to realize the beauty of a city skyline, or even a busy interstate. The high office buildings, the businesses, the traffic, the construction, the people rushing off to do things—I’m a part of that flow now. I know what these places and things and activities are like. I know some of what it takes to create value in the world.

And that’s a wonderful thing.

When I create things, I become connected to every other creator, whether they’re fixing cars or stringing guitars or building spreadsheets. We’re all trying to improve our lives by trading the value we have for the value someone else has. That puts us into a virtuous flow of exchange. That flow ultimately improves the lives of all the other people in all the other cars rushing toward the city skyline.

Seen that way, everyone I pass by on the interstate now is a fellow laborer, or (better yet) a fellow player in a symphony. And every building, every helicopter or plane, every train, every imposing landmark of city life becomes familiar. Instead of finding a city that feels frightening, imposing, or foreign, I feel at home and engaged. I belong here, in the middle of the activity of life.

Get a job as soon as possible. Become a part of the flow. Contribute. Build. As long as it is good, be a part of it.

James Walpole is a writer, start-up marketer, intellectual explorer, and perpetual apprentice. He is an alumnus of Praxis and a Foundation for Economic Education’s Eugene S. Thorpe fellow. He writes regularly at JamesWalpole.com. This article was originally published on the Foundation for Economic Education.