What is Home?

“What is your home address?” is a straightforward question with a straightforward answer.

“What is home?” is anything but a straightforward answer.

Home, in its truest sense, is an agglomeration of emotional, relational, spiritual, cultural and metaphorical dimensions -- in addition to a physical location. And, very importantly, it is temporal: our sense of home can shift as we change and our places change.

A personalized, authentic and flexible definition of home is one of the keys to healthy longevity.

Personal Definition of Home

Home is multi-dimensional but how one weighs these dimensions is deeply personal. One person may consider home as largely an emotion; a certain place may create a sense of home unlike any other.

Another person may identify with a certain place that links to their core identity (i.e., “I am Canadian” or “I am Californian”) that may restrict places to live, particularly of a long period of time.

It is important to consider the multi-dimensional elements of place – emotional, relational, spiritual, cultural and metaphorical – and get a sense of how each my apply to your personal definition of home.

The answer to this question (“What is home?”) is unique to each person. For couples, it is a fundamentally important question for relational harmony. If the definitions are different, the couple runs the risk of being in a place where one person feels at home while the other may feel homeless in some respects.

Authentic Definition of Home

Understanding the levers of home that matter most to you is important but not sufficient. It is critical to see how these levers apply to where you live. In other words, it is important that your understanding and implementation of home is aligned with your deepest values.

Consider someone who sees home as largely a function of living close to good friends. What if this person is living in a place far from good friends. In this case, the person’s physical address would not be aligned with his definition of home.

It’s not just important to know what matters to you, but to make sure those values are expressed on where you truly live, if at all possible.

Flexible Definition of Home

For most of us, our thoughts about home evolve and are subject to change. Particularly in an era of rapid change and longer lives, we are more likely to have our definition of home change. In some cases, changes in a place (consider changes in culture and physical design, in particular) can make one reconsider what is home.

By traveling and living in different places, our sense of home can be stress-tested. Is where you are from your home because it truly is or that’s really all that you know?

Having too rigid a definition of home can limit considering other living options.

The Definition Matters

This is not just an intellectual exercise. It is very practical.

If your definition of home is too narrow – such as simply your address – it makes considering other possible homes an impossibility. For older adults, it is narrow thinking that helps perpetuate the default desire to age in place. The thinking can go something like this: since this is my home and I don’t want to leave home, I will stay put. It cuts off the possibility of considering other places that may be a better fit. In contrast, someone how frames home more broadly, such as the presence of good friends, is more able to consider alternative places as preferences and circumstances dictate.

Do yourself a favor. Take some time to think about what home is for you today and how it may change over time. Even better, make it a conversation with your partner or close friend. Your ability to answer this question – or not answer this question – may tell you a lot about where you are and, perhaps, where you should be.

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