Many people ask what we find as the biggest difference between living in LA and living in Vicksburg.\u00a0 Most assume it is the weather, which is definitely different.\u00a0 But my wife and I grew up in the Northeast and even got to live for a time in Sweden, so the constantly changing nature of Michigan weather (even the snowy parts) are familiar and enjoyable.<\/p>\n
The relative size of the populations is a decided contrast; 29,000,000 people live in Southern California\u00a0 in one unbroken sprawl of adjacent counties and cities.\u00a0 Kalamazoo County, with nine cities and towns which include Kalamazoo, Portage and Vicksburg, has a population of just 261,000.\u00a0 The entire state of Michigan has only 10 million people.<\/p>\n
But it was only after living here just a few months that I realized what I found as the biggest single difference between the two.\u00a0 For me it is the people.\u00a0 At first I was a bit freaked out.\u00a0 The first time I walked our dogs in our new neighborhood, total strangers walking and even driving by would wave to us.\u00a0 This would never happen in LA.<\/p>\n
We went to Lowes.\u00a0 A total stranger offered to help us load bags of mulch into our car.\u00a0 If that happened in LA, we’d not only be astonished, we’d be looking over our shoulders the whole time to see if he had an accomplice, and checking our pockets to make sure we hadn’t been robbed.<\/p>\n
The difference is trust.\u00a0 In LA, in every encounter with a stranger, and there are a lot of them, you have to assume the worst.\u00a0 Maybe they are trying to run a scam, maybe they are targeting you for something worse.\u00a0 But you must always be on guard and trust no one.<\/p>\n
Here people are friendly and helpful, apparently solely for the sake of being friendly and helpful.\u00a0 Who knew?!<\/p>\n
I realized that in LA you trust no one until they prove they can be trusted.\u00a0 Here, you can trust everyone, until they prove they cannot be trusted.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n That is\u00a0 a huge difference in your outlook and the way in which you approach you daily life.\u00a0 And being constantly on guard is exhausting.<\/p>\n Southern Michigan by contrast is relaxing.<\/p>\n We’re not in LA anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The difference is trust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[229,109,110,230],"class_list":["post-1635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-michigan","tag-culture","tag-los-angeles","tag-michigan","tag-trust"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1635"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1637,"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions\/1637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauldearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}