“I can’t wait to get out of here.”

It’s something I hear constantly by people around me at college. It seems like a common desire; everyone wants to leave Iowa for greener pastures (or bigger cities, I suppose). I recently got back from the Middle East and I find myself constantly comparing life there with life here as a central Iowan.

The more I think about it, the more I’ve realized that Iowans and Jordanians have more in common than they think. They both speak the same way about the places they live – they want out.

I always hear Americans talking about how “boring” Iowa is and how much more “exciting” it would be to move to New York, Chicago, Denver or California.

Then you’ve got the taxi drivers in Amman, Jordan. Last week, in the last few days in Jordan, I was taking a taxi back home from work. I got to talking with the thirty-something driver while waiting out a traffic jam. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned I was heading back home to the states later in the week. Then the questions started coming, just as they had in dozens of other rides during my stay in Jordan. Every time I can remember, the first question was always, “Where is a better place to live, here or the U.S.?” The first few times, the question would throw me off, and I wouldn’t quite know what to say.

I spent a great deal of time thinking about it and finally had my answer to the great taxi driver question. It’s simple.

I answered that both places were nice and there are advantages to living in both places.

This particular fellow looked at me like I was nuts. How on Earth, he said, could anyone even consider that life in Jordan was remotely comparable to life in the United States?

It’s simple, I told him, maybe you would be better off in the U.S. and maybe not.

Not everyone in the U.S retires wealthy at 45 and spends the rest of their days in relaxation deciding whether the black or silver Mercedes most appropriately matches their “look”. The vast majority of people live quite normal lives, and certainly not the lives Hollywood portrays.

I told him Jordan has its advantages – a growing economy, reasonably safe big cities and the family support network. In the Arab world (and many other parts of the world), the family is paramount to all else.

I tried to give him a more realistic look at city life in the U.S. – crime, pollution, and many hours of work just to stay afloat. Then, if he works his tail off, with a little luck, he’ll be able to relax a little.

He wanted to know about life in the U.S., if it was indeed true that he could become rich quickly like his relatives in the U.S. were saying. (I discovered quickly that seemingly everyone I talked to had cousins or friends living in the United States, telling them of the incredible life to be lived in the great land of plenty that is the U.S.)

That’s just it. It isn’t that one place is necessarily better than the other, they are just different. Telling that to the taxi driver in Jordan reminded me of how grateful I am to live where I do.

It’s not just Jordanians. The majority of people I know say they are leaving as soon as they’re finished with their education in Iowa. They say that, “Iowa is boring.” “There’s nothing to do in Iowa,” etc. If you ask me, that’s nonsense.

Who’s to say that a life outside of Iowa is necessarily a superior one, or any more exciting.

It’s obviously understandable when someone leaves Iowa because they need to. To find the work they want, they simply must move to a large city.

It’s the people who leave Iowa just for the sake of it I struggle to understand. They never gave their home state a fair shot. In Iowa there is a clean, safe and abundant water supply. That simple fact is more than what many countries can say.

We’ve got great public schools, low crime rates and the overall cost of living is lower than most other places in the country.

When it comes down to it, we have a lot to be grateful for.

As for the Jordanian taxi drivers, they’ll realize appearances can be deceiving and come to realize that one has to weigh his or her options on an even scale and then decide what the next step is.

I suppose it’s a natural human tendency to always think that greener pastures are on the other side, but perhaps it’s time we were more appreciative of what we do have. Maybe Iowan college kids and Jordanian taxi drivers have more in common than they think.

Omar Tesdell is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Slater.