Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicWizard
jaxlocal wrote: People always like to say it is impossible yet somehow people seem to make it happen year after year.
Dream killers ( yes, I'm guilty! ) love to hang out on this forum. But we are mostly full of baloney I say. Give more validity to the words of Henry David Thoreau who said something to this effect: What others say you cannot do, you try, and find you can. Those words have rung true for me over and over again during my 60 revolutions around the sun on this planet. I have also learned that having $$$ in the bank makes dreams come true faster and easier.  |
Your last sentence is probably the most important. Having resources, financial or otherwise, can make dreams come true much easier. What I do not think most posters like the OP understand is that living in rural Colorado requires, over the long-term, some pretty significant sacrifice. Most people living elsewhere are not ready or able to make those sacrifices.
They (and some of the people who encourage them) also do not realize that the last 10 years or so--until about the past 8 months--have been about the easiest time period economically to live in rural Colorado in the last 100 years. That is a historical anomaly, and it is ending. Long-time locals understand both of these things and, if they stay here, are willing to make the sacrifices, financial and otherwise, that are necessary to survive here. Finally, there is no polite way to put this: economically speaking, rural Colorado is an absolutely miserable place to start one's career. It can be done (I actually did it many years ago), but it is extremely difficult. Few young people can make it happen--even the children of long-time residents. Rural Colorado has been hemorrhaging its young people to other places for years. Colorado's rural college towns look attractive (Alamosa, Gunnison, Durango, etc.), but a cursory check will show that only a minuscule number of graduates from those colleges actually manage to stay in rural Colorado--the lucky few mostly being a small number hired each year as teachers in rural Colorado school districts.
Unlike most other posters here, I have been living and working in rural Colorado for most of nearly 40 years. Pure and simple, it is a constant economic struggle most of the time for people to do it. On average, you will make less income here than most places, and jobs or businesses often require longer hours, more work, and are less secure than in many places. These rural areas are full of retired people who would have lived here all of their lives if they could, but it took them a lifetime of working someplace to save enough to be able to afford to live in this area because it can not support them economically otherwise. Even if you do everything right, there are no guarantees that you will be able to stay here. Most long-time residents have had to endure a stint of at least working elsewhere and probably living elsewhere to make a living--not by choice. I've had to do that, too.
It's great to dream to live in a place like Durango, but one needs to know the odds. I dream of winning the Lotto every time I buy a ticket, but I know the odds of that happening are minuscule. Dream I may, but I'm making alternative plans in the meantime.
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