New Mexico, a Great Place to Settle

New Mexico landscape. Near El Rancho de las Golondrinas

The other day I was returning something at Home Depot and had to show my ID.

The cashier took one look at my driver's license and exclaimed, "You're from Hawaii? What are you doing in New Mexico?"

I get that a lot.

The short answer is, I moved here in 1997 and there's just enough inertia to keep me here.

The long answer is below.

In many ways, New Mexico is a terrible place to live. It’s one of the poorest states in the union. Nearly a third of the state is desert. Summers last five months, from May to September, with highs in the 90s and into the 100s. It is hot, dry, and dusty.

Then there’s the people. Despite having the sixth lowest population density nationwide with only slightly more than two million people, the statistics on shootings and crime are alarmingly high. The local news regularly reports distressing facts about New Mexico being last in economic, healthcare, social capital and education measures:

Yes, New Mexico is number one – in all the wrong ways.

What the Home Depot clerk, and all the others who do an instantaneous mental comparison between the reality of their life in New Mexico and the imagined paradise of Hawaii, are saying is,

“Why settle for New Mexico?”

The Visitor's Bureau version

Everything has its good and bad aspects. New Mexico has outstanding natural features, plenty of room, good air quality. It’s relatively affordable, and I have a good job here.

And the lack of ambition in the general population fits me fine since basically, I’m also lazy and unambitious.

Back when I was in college, I used to visit my family in L.A. during the holidays. One time, my older cousin Chery offered me some advice about choosing a major. She said, “Whatever you do, make sure you pick a major that will make you a lot of money. Because money is very important.”

Even back then I remember being appalled. “I like my Dad’s advice better. He said, ‘Pick a career doing something you like to do.’”

But that was normal for how people in L.A. think.

Here's another example: In L.A., the cars on the freeway are remarkably clean and new.

In Albuquerque, whether it’s out of indifference or poverty, people drive beat up cars with dents. Cars are dusty, the windows often busted out and taped over with a garbage bag.

L.A. people care about status, clothes, their careers.

New Mexicans don’t think that way. Check them out at the State Fair, the malls, or the airports. God, they dress horribly.

The feeling of isolation is not new to me

As a teenager growing up in Hawaii, I often had the feeling that everything exciting in culture, music, fashion, and politics was happening thousands of miles away, while I was stuck on a rock in the middle of the ocean.

If you grew up in New Mexico, do you know the feeling? VB Price’s book, Albuquerque, City at the End of the World suggested that this place feels unusually isolated from other cities.

Think about celebrities who come from New Mexico, like Bill Gates, Demi Moore, or Neil Patrick Harris. As soon as they realized they had a talent, they relocated to places where they could be around other people who would encourage and further their careers, like L.A., New York, Austin, Miami, or Seattle.

But the flip side of that is, you can live here without having to work five jobs to earn your rent. As my friend Putnay says, “Living here is EASY.” Having grown up in Connecticut, he adores the warm weather and all the hiking and camping out here.

It’s about time

Here’s another thing: In Hawaii, people take a casual approach to time. As Robert Schmitt and Doak Cox describe it, Hawaiian Time is

“a relaxed indifference to precise scheduling: 8 o'clock concerts start at 8:15, parties planned for 8:30 often begin at 9:30, the 10 o'clock newscast seldom appears before 10:10, and sports events may be televised with a three-hour tape delay.

New Mexicans have the same relaxed approach to time as the “Land of Mañana”.

A couple years ago, I took my car to my local mechanic to get a couple things fixed. He kept it for nine months. Nine months! Even for me, that was a long time.

Sometimes this slow pace drives people nuts. But this relaxed pace makes New Mexico very livable.

So why settle in New Mexico?

I live here because I feel at home here.

Please don't get butt-hurt

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. When I talk about this with native New Mexicans, sometimes they get offended. People are proud of New Mexico and the values here, despite the grim statistics. They get upset and defensive when I list the many reasons why it’s not such a great place to live.

Every perceived weakness is also a strength. The fact that we’re not fixated on status and fortune means we have more opportunity to develop a measure of work-life balance.

One of my co-workers, Matt, grew up here and then went to school on the East Coast. After getting his degree, he went for a job interview out there. The interviewer boasted that this company was so stressful that when he first got there, he developed a case of hives. Matt said he couldn’t believe this was supposed to be a selling point, and quickly decided to move back to Albuquerque, where the pace of life was more livable.

Being (In)famous is not that great

The one thing that came from New Mexico that IS world famous is the atomic bomb.

In three years, from 1943 to 1945, scientists in Los Alamos developed one of the most complex and devastating technologies ever.

But there were 250,000 Japanese civilians who probably would have been happier if those scientists had been less ambitious and less competent.

Maybe the reason we live here is BECAUSE of the culture – a culture that is less concerned about status, fame, and fortune.

Is there a way to preserve the good things about living here but still improve the quality of life with less crime, more education, more jobs?

Ultimately, I intend to move back to Hawaii one day. But because of the relaxed attitude towards life here, New Mexico has proved to be a good place to live and a great place to settle.

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Albuquerque