Nomadic Values

When you live in a society that has a nomadic existence, it will its values. This impacts you, your marriage, your family and your community.

When you find yourself moving in order to obtain employment, you are becoming part of today’s nomadic culture. It sounds nicer to call this ‘transient’ or temporary. The reality is that it is a nomadic existence. Going from city to city or State to State seeking employment or better opportunities is nomadic. You can paint it with different colors and call it different things, but it is nomadic.

You may not have considered yourself or your family job nomads, yet that may be the reality of your situation. It may be that your job requires you to move from placement to placement as in the military, or working for a large multi-national. Although they may the new placements sound like travel vacations, they are not. They have consequences.

The influx of immigrants also brings with it cultural pressures that exert themselves on families and communities. Although few talk about it, they bring a nomadic existence with them and force society to accommodate nomadic living and nomadic values.

Jumping from job to job or career to career has greater acceptance today than 40 years ago. Although some see these job jumps as ways of advancing their career, such jumps have consequences. One of those consequences is the development of nomadic values. Moving is always tough on children and each move strains your relationship a little more. You have to wonder how many moves can my marriage handle?

The reality is that the longer you live the nomadic life, the more you develop nomadic values. The problem with nomadic values is that they leave you vulnerable to affairs. Going from town to town, your life becomes one extended out of town business trip. With such a lifestyle, your values often begin to accommodate.

With the nomadic values, you loose community support and accountability. That means that some of the safeguards within communities that discourage affairs are no longer there. With the safety mechanisms removed, the risk is greater.

Not only are the safety mechanisms removed, with frequent moving, you loose a sense of stability. Your life, your marriage and family become as changeable as your life.

The frequent changes also has a built in creep value. The creep value is how loyalty to the job or company often begins taking over your value system. You or your spouse may find yourselves placing the company or job first and sacrifice family priorities or values along the way. This is tragic. You may value your family, yet the need for a job creeps into your heart and takes over the position of primary loyalty.

The creep comes in two ways. A creep in values and job creep itself. Job creep is when employers continue requiring you to do more, or work more. The increased hours has a toll on you and your family.

When keeping the job becomes the priority, compromising marital values or vows becomes easier and easier. Since you are in a community without extended family, connections or accountability, who is going to say anything to your spouse? Who is even going to know your spouse? The value creep of the job in taking over your values often becomes a slippery slope.

Nomadic cultures often use up resources and move on. They have little sense of rootedness. They move to where the next resources can be found. This means that if you are caught up in nomadic living, you need to make sure of your relationships. This includes reducing job creep, both of values and job hours themselves. You will need to strengthen your marriage and improve your connections to the community.

Best Regards,

Jeff