Obviously, the temperate zones are huge, and they incorporate a large number of countries, from the U.S and Canada in the west, to Russia and China in the east. But from the cold north of Sweden to the hot south of Spain, there are some principles that hold true for everyone living in the temperate zones.
1. You feel like adventure is anywhere but where you are
It doesn’t matter where in the temperate zone you were brought up – if you’ve lived there your entire life, you will be bored with it. And no matter what you have nearby, “adventure” is something you can only find far away from wherever you happen to live. That’s just the way of thinking in the temperate zone; every place in the world is full of adventures, except for the one place where we happen to live.
2. You view the year as four distinct seasons
One thing that is the same for anyone living in the temperate zones is that we divide the world into four distinct seasons. We just can’t imagine a world where the year isn’t clearly divided into spring, summer, autumn and winter.
3. You can’t understand how other cultures can be so different
If you’ve grown up in a temperate zone, chances are you’ve been raised in a western culture – and that’s all you’ve ever known. Movies, newspapers and TV shows all tend to show you how the world only works the way you expect it to. Therefore, you just can’t understand how other cultures could possibly view the world any differently than you.
4. You KNOW your country is the most civilized in the world
It doesn’t matter which country you live in – if you live in the temperate zone, you just KNOW it’s the most civilized country in the world. Outside the borders of your country, only chaos and barbarians exist.
5. You only see the beach during summer
If there is one thing all people from temperate zones hold for granted, it’s that the beach equals summer. Be it golden tropical beaches far away, or the local beach down by the lake, you just never visit the beach unless you have the summer heat backing you up.
6. You’re ruled by the western ideals for success
One thing that is more or less unique to the temperate zone is our fixation with conventional success – to build a career, make lots of money, and buy fancy things. In fact, this ideal is so wide-spread in this part of the world that it tends to rule over our entire lives, putting pressure on us to live up to all the social norms of our society.
7. You view the rest of the world as unsafe
No matter which temperate country you’re from, you view it as being the safest place in the world. It doesn’t matter what any statistics or indexes happen to say – anywhere outside your country’s borders is unsafe!
8. You see the rest of the world only as vacation destinations
As you grow up in a temperate zone, you see your home country as the only possible place for “real life” to occur, and you view the rest of the world only as temporary places to go for your vacation. You’ve come to divide the world into two separate locations; the “real life” places, and the vacation places.
9. You couldn’t go a day without technology
The temperate zones are known for their large-scale adoption of technology – every single part of our society has been either computerized or simplified by technology. And as great as this sounds, it has also made us completely dependent on technology for our survival. We simply cannot imagine life without constant access to the internet, TV or central heating.
10. You can’t imagine living anywhere else
Growing up in a temperate zone, you just can’t imagine living anywhere else on the planet. Sure, you occasionally fantasize about what it would be like to live in a tropical paradise, but you never actually take those fantasies seriously. And those fantasies usually begin and end with laying on the beach sipping a cold drink all day.
11. You can’t understand anyone living in a different zone
No matter how hard you try to understand, people living in different zones will always remain a mystery to you. You just can’t seem to grasp the concept of people living in a world that’s different from your own.
Featured photo credit: people photography is hard by Mendhak via flickr.com
