As a kid, my family moved a lot. Not as in four states in a year, living out of boxes, as you sometimes hear about, but I have childhood on both coasts. And then, we lived in one house for all of my middle and high school years, which was like a standstill. I didn't hate moving, as most little kids usually do. I loved it. I told people I would have a new school and a million new friends and I would be giddy with excitement just imagining how I might set up my new room. My memory is blocked out into chunks - Oregon, Maryland, New Hampshire.

Maybe it's because I loved moving that I can appreciate the value in it. I know plenty of people who have lived on the same street their entire lives and cannot imagine it any other way. But it was not until after that final stop in our last house, when I moved alone, to go to college in one of the most important cities in the world, that I actually realized how much my character is truly built on simply never having been certain of how long I would be in one place, having a constant anticipation, even desire to be shaken up again.

I can say I am braver. I am stronger and I am more aware and more honest with myself. I can never have enough perspectives - I am constantly learning and I hope I will be forever. I have friends across the world. I don't want to stop being excited; I want to be uprooted, constantly.

There's that famous saying, "bloom where you are planted". I am not sure I completely buy that. We always have the capacity to pick ourselves up, to make what we can of the entire world. It does not have to mean moving clear across the country, nor does it mean forcing oneself into unhappiness simply for the sake of change. But change has a special effect on people. Every book or movie plot begins with a change; because why else would there be any story to tell? History is built on movement. Migrations and immigration and relocation and, simply, the exchange of ideas. Nothing is ever the same. We likely would not want a world where things are.

I still have to remind myself to be uprooted. It takes a different independence, now that it's solely up to me to decide whether I've been surrounded by too much of the same bubble for too long, to step back and look at where I'm planted. I am confident, however, that it usually doesn't take long for something you don't expect to uproot you.

Naturally, a woman featured on Humans of New York, the popular blog delivering the perspectives of people all over the world, had something to say about this -- a quote that has stuck with me for a long time. Leaning against a fence, she said, "I have this theory. You ready? So we are on Earth for a finite amount of time. And time is a manmade perception. And we perceive time passing through change - seasons, aging, things like that. So in order to expand our time on Earth, we must incite as much change in our lives as possible."

There is truth to what she says -- or maybe that's just my take. Remind yourself always to be uprooted, because you cannot truly "bloom" if you sit forever right where you were planted.