Why You Need a Room of Your Own

Remember when you were a kid? You had a your secret places. If you were lucky, you had a room of your own. It may have been a tree house or a secret hiding place only you knew about.

It was a place you could put your mark on. A place you could escape to. It was your own. We still need those places. We all do.

Our homes are the obvious place we think of first. I may be biased because I’m a guy, but it seems that for most women, the house is “the place of their own.” I’m not calling out an inequity. In most cases it’s just the way nature has worked these things out. Even so ladies, you still need your own place too.

Most guys don’t care a lot about decorating and making a house a home. It’s just not guy stuff. One of my friends in my neighborhood poker group complimented my “rocks” glasses, and then called me out because I knew we got them at Crate and Barrel. So in “bro-code,” it’s okay to have cool glasses, but not cool to know where they came from. Go figure.

My wife and I are fortunate to have a huge overlap in our personal tastes. But as a guy who cares about furniture and paint colors, and has at least some sense of personal expression, I still needed an escape route! We were lucky enough to have an extra room for my office. It quickly became designated as “my room” or “your room” depending on the context.  Whatever you call it, it’s a place where I get to call the shots and it makes me happy.

This room has also played a key part in our marital bliss more than once… “You can get that thing, but it’s going in your room!” The hunter in me gets to bring home a trophy, and my wife and guests don’t have to see it.

There’s a lot being written right now about having some margin, some quiet time, some alone time, some unplugging time, some recharging time, or just time to stop to breathe. Having a place of your own goes a long way to help this happen

Just like when you were a kid… it was yours and yours alone.

It can be…

• The place you curl up with a good book
• Your workbench in the basement
• A favorite park bench
• Your fishing hole that no one knows about
• The coffee shop down the street
• Your man-cave
• A hobby or project space
• Out on the deck or patio…

Or wherever you find it, but do go find it!