I’m not a very good example of a ‘settled’ person, I’m afraid! Firstly, I grew up in London which is a very transient place, so most of the people I grew up with have moved away. Secondly, I only keep in contact with one friend and one member of my family from back then – I haven’t spoken to my sister in over 5 years.
Growing up in London is very different from growing up in a close community so I don’t really know what effect that has. Apart from saying that when I moved to a tiny rural village, I was so used to the anonymity of London that I found it very odd the way people took an interest in my business.
And I very much go my own way, I’m not very conventional so I have quirks aplenty!
Some people have a close inner circle of family and friends and build the wall around that. They’re happy with that. Yes, they probably miss out on meeting some interesting people, but they'd probably look around at others and say they save themselves a lot of stress too. And even if they let people in sometimes, they evict them for the slightest thing because their emotional needs are being sufficiently met by their inner circle.
I think you get some people who reach a point (if they weren’t always there) of being very static in their lives. It’s like they’ve drawn this big circle around themselves, they’re happy with what’s inside it, and they don’t look beyond the boundaries. They’re not interested in what’s beyond it. And they’re not interested in taking risks on people. Often they’re quite content.
Then you get people (irrespective of their backgrounds) who have a different perspective. They’re always looking outwards beyond the boundaries, taking risks, seeking to meet new people, try new things, travel to new places, wanting to know what’s around the next corner. They can’t believe that people in the first group can be happy living in their tiny, insular world shutting people out. But, who knows, the people in the first group may well be happier as they're content with what they have.
You can probably tell from this that after many years of thinking I knew what was best, I've reached the point where I realize I don't actually know :)
I don't know how any of that applies to Sean by the way - that was me rambling on very generic ground :)