What feels normal in your house might be strange everywhere else. Visit friends’ homes with open eyes.

You learn what counts as ordinary from the only house you have lived in, and much of what you absorbed is local custom rather than universal fact: how people argue, how much noise is acceptable, what gets said at dinner. None of it is visible until you see another household up close. Noticing the difference is not a judgment on your family. It just widens the set of possibilities you know about.

Pay attention the next time you are in somebody else’s home, to the small things rather than the furniture. Notice one thing you would want and one you would not.