Academics argue that people need both “prospect and refuge.” Prospect as in expansive views of the outside world, refuge as in concealment and safety. To see, but not be seen.

I’d argue we need a bit more: we need to see, be seen, not see, and not be seen.

We might need prospect, refuge, public life and private life in varying amounts depending on our tendency toward introversion or extroversion. But we all need some of our life to be lived in public. We need encounters with other people, even strangers, to see and be seen.

Our home can be our refuge and retreat from public life. We should optimize our homes so they’re beautiful and orderly, and then we should stop thinking about them so much and turn our attention elsewhere.

Our homes can never meet all of our psychological needs, and we do ourselves a disservice fixating on our private lives at the expense of our public ones.

We need to contribute to something bigger than our own selves, to take psychological ownership over something beyond our little island of private property.

Rebecca Solnit says it best: “The dream of a house can be the eternally postponed preliminary step to taking up the lives we wish we were living... It was as though all that realm of citizenry and public life had shrunk back and no one dared hope for a better society…they just tended lawns or refinished the kitchen cabinets.”

Next time we feel a need for new throw pillows, or even a new home entirely, we might challenge ourselves to consider if this emphasis on home improvement is misplaced.

Do we actually have unsatisfied needs for public life and prospect?

Do we actually need better relationships?

Better neighborhoods?

Better nations?