There is something about travertine that seems to slow a room down.
Perhaps it is the softness of its colour, the texture beneath your hand or the small openings and irregularities that make every piece different. Perhaps it is simply that the stone feels settled, as though it has nothing to prove.
Then you learn how travertine comes into existence and that feeling begins to make sense.
Travertine is formed through a relationship between water, minerals, earth and time. Mineral-rich water moves through and emerges from the earth. As conditions change, calcium carbonate is deposited, gradually creating the stone and the extraordinary terraces and formations associated with it.
The water moves on.
Something remains.
Spiritually, travertine is associated with grounding, calm, patience, stability, renewal and our connection to the earth. But perhaps its deepest meaning comes from holding two seemingly different ideas at once.
Earth tells us to stay grounded. Water tells us to keep moving. Travertine carries both.
And there are times in life when we need exactly that reminder.
Why Is Travertine Spiritually Connected With Time?
Travertine carries a powerful relationship with time because its character is created through accumulation — mineral being left behind as water continues on its way.
We spend a remarkable amount of our lives waiting for what comes next.
Waiting for the business to grow. Waiting for the house. Waiting for the children to become easier, then wondering how they became adults so quickly. Waiting for Friday, summer, the holiday, the next opportunity or the moment when life finally feels properly organised.
It is very easy to live that way.
The problem is that while we are waiting for life to begin, life is already happening.
Travertine offers a quieter way of thinking about time. Its character is not created in one dramatic moment. It develops through repetition, movement and accumulation. Layer upon layer, something gradually takes form.
Our lives often become meaningful in much the same way.
One dinner is simply dinner. One Sunday morning feels ordinary. One conversation at the coffee table may be forgotten by the following week. But repeat those moments over years and they become childhood, marriage, friendship, family and home.
We rarely recognise the important years while we are living inside them.
Travertine reminds us that ordinary time is not the space between the important moments. Ordinary time is where most of life actually happens.
Why Does Travertine Represent Both Grounding and Flow?
Travertine brings together two powerful spiritual ideas: the stability of earth and the movement of water.
We often think we have to choose between the two.
Be settled or pursue something new. Be content or ambitious. Hold on or move forward. Create roots or explore what else might be possible.
Life is rarely that simple.
Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is remain deeply connected to what matters while still allowing everything around it to evolve.
A family can have strong values while its children grow into completely different people. A business can have a clear purpose while changing the way it operates. A home can hold memories of one chapter while becoming something new in the next.
Travertine's symbolism sits beautifully inside that tension.
The earth gives us somewhere to stand. Water reminds us that life will continue moving whether we resist it or not.
Perhaps real grounding is not trying to stop change.
Perhaps it is knowing what remains important while change is happening.
Why Can Travertine Make a Space Feel Calm Before You Know Its Meaning?
Sometimes our bodies notice a material before our minds begin explaining it.
We have all entered spaces that simply feel good.
Nothing obvious has happened. We have not measured the proportions or consciously studied the materials. Yet something feels settled.
Natural materials can contribute to that experience because they do not present us with perfect mechanical repetition. Travertine contains variation, texture, openings and tonal movement. Light behaves differently across its surface throughout the day. There is enough variation to hold our attention without demanding it.
Then we discover that the stone is spiritually connected with grounding, calm and patience, and the meaning can feel strangely familiar.
Perhaps that is because the symbolism has given language to something we had already experienced.
Sometimes understanding a material does not change how it makes us feel. It helps us understand why we felt something in the first place.
What Can Travertine Teach Us About Patience?
Travertine reminds us that meaningful things do not always reveal themselves quickly.
This can be difficult to remember in a world built around speed.
We expect answers immediately. We compare our progress with other people's finished results. We become frustrated when businesses, relationships, homes or even ourselves take longer to develop than we imagined.
But some things cannot be rushed without changing what they become.
Trust takes time. Expertise takes time. A family develops its traditions through repetition. A new house takes time before it stops feeling new and begins feeling like home.
Even our understanding of ourselves changes slowly.
Patience does not mean abandoning ambition. It means recognising that something can still be developing even when the result is not yet visible.
Travertine carries that idea naturally. Its beauty comes from process rather than immediacy.
There are periods in life when we need to push forward.
There are others when we need enough wisdom to let something develop.
Knowing the difference may be one of the hardest forms of patience.
Why Do Travertine's Natural Openings Matter?
The openings and irregularities in travertine are not interruptions to its character. They are part of its character.
There is something wonderfully human about that.
We spend enormous amounts of energy trying to close every gap in our lives.
Every silence needs filling. Every uncertainty needs an answer. Every free hour becomes something to organise. Every imperfection becomes something to correct.
But space has value too.
A pause in conversation can allow someone else to speak. An empty afternoon can become time with family. A period without a clear answer can eventually lead us somewhere we would never have planned.
Even within a home, emptiness matters. A room needs space around furniture. Objects become more meaningful when they are not surrounded by hundreds of others. Stillness gives us somewhere to rest our attention.
Travertine does not need every opening erased before it can be beautiful.
Perhaps neither do our lives.
Not every space needs filling. Not every uncertainty needs solving immediately. Sometimes what we leave open gives everything around it room to breathe.
Why Is Travertine Connected With Renewal?
Travertine's relationship with flowing water gives it a natural spiritual connection with renewal, movement and beginning again.
Water rarely stays where we put it.
It finds another direction. It moves around obstacles, changes course and continues.
There are periods in life when that idea becomes particularly meaningful.
A relationship changes. Children leave home. Work takes an unexpected direction. A plan we were certain about no longer makes sense. Something ends before we were ready for it to end.
Moving forward does not require pretending the previous chapter did not matter.
Water leaves something behind.
So do we.
Experience remains. Memory remains. Knowledge remains. The people we have loved and the things we have built become part of what comes next, even when life itself changes direction.
Renewal is not starting again as though nothing happened.
It is continuing with everything the previous chapter taught us.
What Does Travertine Mean Within a Family Home?
Within a family home, travertine can represent the calm foundation underneath a life that never actually stops changing.
Homes move through seasons.
There may be years when toys are everywhere and quiet feels impossible. Then suddenly the house becomes quieter and we would give almost anything to hear that noise again.
There are rushed breakfasts, people running late, friends arriving, birthdays, disagreements, celebrations, illnesses, Sunday lunches and completely unremarkable evenings when everyone happens to be home.
While we are living those moments, many of them feel ordinary.
Later, they become the things we remember.
This is where travertine's relationship with time becomes especially meaningful. A stone formed through accumulation becomes part of a home where another kind of accumulation begins: shared time.
A coffee table may sit quietly at the centre of thousands of evenings. A side table beside a chair can become part of someone's morning ritual. Stone beside a bath can become associated with the few quiet minutes someone manages to claim at the end of a demanding day.
None of these moments appears particularly significant by itself.
Together, they become a life.
Why Does Travertine Feel So Natural Beside Water and Places of Rest?
Travertine's own relationship with mineral-rich water gives it a beautiful symbolic connection with bathing, restoration and the moments when we allow ourselves to slow down.
A bath is one of the simplest examples.
Nothing productive needs to happen there.
There is no performance required. No audience. No result to measure.
Perhaps there is only warm water, a towel, a book, a glass placed on a stone side table and twenty minutes when the day finally becomes quiet.
Those moments can look insignificant compared with everything else we are trying to achieve.
They are not.
Rest allows us to return to our families with more patience. Stillness gives us room to think. Time alone can remind us who we are outside the demands placed upon us.
Travertine belongs naturally within those spaces because its symbolism asks very little from us.
Stay grounded.
Allow things to move.
Rest when you need to.
Then continue.
Why Might One Piece of Travertine Feel Right and Another Not?
Because natural stone is individual, and our response to it is individual too.
Some people are drawn to pronounced pores and strong movement. Others prefer quieter surfaces and subtle tonal variation. One piece might immediately feel warm and familiar while another, technically similar stone leaves us unmoved.
There does not always need to be a rational explanation.
Understanding density, finish, care and suitability matters when choosing natural stone furniture. But knowledge does not need to remove instinct from the decision.
We live with these materials.
We see them in morning light and evening light. We touch them. We place our belongings on them. Eventually they become so familiar that we stop consciously looking at them.
If one piece continually draws you back, that response matters.
Sometimes attraction comes before understanding.
What Happens to Travertine's Meaning as We Live With It?
Eventually, the stone's ancient relationship with time begins to meet our own.
At first, we may choose travertine because we love its colour, texture or meaning.
Years later, those may no longer be the first things we see.
We see the house where we first owned it. The child who used to sit beside it. The coffee someone always placed in the same spot. The friend who came for dinner and somehow stayed until midnight. The quiet morning after a difficult year. The people who once filled the room.
This is when furniture becomes more than material and form.
A stone created as water moved through the earth has spent years sitting quietly while another kind of movement happened around it.
Children grew.
People changed.
Families expanded.
Some people arrived and others left.
Ordinary days accumulated.
And eventually we realised those ordinary days were the story.
Travertine begins with water moving through the earth, leaving something behind as it passes. Perhaps our lives are not so different.
The days move forward. The people we love grow and change. Moments accumulate almost unnoticed until one day we realise those layers have become our life.
Travertine reminds us not to rush through the very time we may one day wish we could have back.
Designed to Endure.
John Leighton.
FURTHER READING
Vo Trong Nghia Architects — Vietnam
Architecture practice known for bringing vegetation, natural materials and passive design into contemporary buildings while exploring a closer relationship between people and nature.
votrongnghia.com
Wallmakers — India
Architecture practice founded by Vinu Daniel, recognised for experimental buildings created through earth, reclaimed materials and construction approaches deeply connected to place.
wallmakers.org
Sumaya Dabbagh / Dabbagh Architects — United Arab Emirates
Dubai-based architectural practice whose work explores material, culture, spirituality and place, including spaces where light and material contribute strongly to human experience.
dabbagharchitects.com
Marina Tabassum Architects — Bangladesh
Dhaka-based architecture practice recognised for buildings shaped by climate, local materials, community and a deep understanding of place.
marinatabassumarchitects.com
Diébédo Francis Kéré / Kéré Architecture — Burkina Faso / Germany
Architecture practice internationally recognised for combining local materials, climate intelligence, craftsmanship and community in buildings designed around human connection.
kerearchitecture.com
Estudio Macías Peredo — Mexico
Mexican architecture studio whose work explores material, shadow, landscape and regional building traditions through spaces with a strong sense of permanence and place.
maciasperedoyasociados.com
Pezo von Ellrichshausen — Chile
Architecture and art studio based in southern Chile, known for elemental buildings where material, geometry, landscape and human experience are closely intertwined.
pezo.cl
Solano Benítez / Gabinete de Arquitectura — Paraguay
Paraguayan architecture practice celebrated for transforming familiar materials through experimentation, craft and an understanding of how structure and material can shape communal space.
gabinetedearquitectura.com
Tosin Oshinowo / Oshinówò Studio — Nigeria
Lagos-based architect and designer whose work considers identity, culture, material and the relationship between contemporary design and its local context.
oshinowostudio.com
MASS Design Group — Rwanda / United States
Architecture and design collective exploring how buildings, landscape, material and community can contribute to human dignity and social connection.
massdesigngroup.org
Studio Contra — South Africa
Johannesburg-based architecture practice exploring contemporary African architecture through material, landscape, climate and the cultural conditions of place.
studiocontra.co.za
Natura Futura Arquitectura — Ecuador
Ecuadorian architecture practice creating socially and environmentally responsive projects shaped by local materials, everyday life and the communities occupying them.
naturafuturarq.com
Anupama Kundoo Architects — India / Germany
Architecture practice exploring material research, craft, time and resource-conscious construction, with a strong focus on the relationship between making, people and place.
anupamakundoo.com
Formafatal — Czech Republic / Costa Rica
Architecture and design studio working across contrasting landscapes, often using natural materials, texture and climate to create strong connections between interior life and the surrounding environment.
formafatal.cz
AGi Architects — Kuwait / Spain
International architecture practice founded in Kuwait whose work explores contemporary life, cultural context, climate and the relationship between private and shared spaces.
agi-architects.com
John Leighton is not affiliated with the external studios, practices or publications referenced above.
COMMUNITY
Styling News explores the questions that come up when choosing furniture, materials and the way they work within a home. If there is something you would like us to explain in a future article, we welcome the conversation.
Do you ever find yourself rushing towards what comes next — and what helps you slow down enough to notice the life already happening around you?
At John Leighton we design furniture around natural material, considered form and the belief that the pieces we live with should have a reason to remain.
The Spiritual Meaning of Travertine: Grounding, Flow and Trusting Time
There is something about travertine that seems to slow a room down.
Perhaps it is the softness of its colour, the texture beneath your hand or the small openings and irregularities that make every piece different. Perhaps it is simply that the stone feels settled, as though it has nothing to prove.
Then you learn how travertine comes into existence and that feeling begins to make sense.
Travertine is formed through a relationship between water, minerals, earth and time. Mineral-rich water moves through and emerges from the earth. As conditions change, calcium carbonate is deposited, gradually creating the stone and the extraordinary terraces and formations associated with it.
The water moves on.
Something remains.
Spiritually, travertine is associated with grounding, calm, patience, stability, renewal and our connection to the earth. But perhaps its deepest meaning comes from holding two seemingly different ideas at once.
Earth tells us to stay grounded. Water tells us to keep moving. Travertine carries both.
And there are times in life when we need exactly that reminder.
Why Is Travertine Spiritually Connected With Time?
Travertine carries a powerful relationship with time because its character is created through accumulation — mineral being left behind as water continues on its way.
We spend a remarkable amount of our lives waiting for what comes next.
Waiting for the business to grow. Waiting for the house. Waiting for the children to become easier, then wondering how they became adults so quickly. Waiting for Friday, summer, the holiday, the next opportunity or the moment when life finally feels properly organised.
It is very easy to live that way.
The problem is that while we are waiting for life to begin, life is already happening.
Travertine offers a quieter way of thinking about time. Its character is not created in one dramatic moment. It develops through repetition, movement and accumulation. Layer upon layer, something gradually takes form.
Our lives often become meaningful in much the same way.
One dinner is simply dinner. One Sunday morning feels ordinary. One conversation at the coffee table may be forgotten by the following week. But repeat those moments over years and they become childhood, marriage, friendship, family and home.
We rarely recognise the important years while we are living inside them.
Travertine reminds us that ordinary time is not the space between the important moments. Ordinary time is where most of life actually happens.
Why Does Travertine Represent Both Grounding and Flow?
Travertine brings together two powerful spiritual ideas: the stability of earth and the movement of water.
We often think we have to choose between the two.
Be settled or pursue something new. Be content or ambitious. Hold on or move forward. Create roots or explore what else might be possible.
Life is rarely that simple.
Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is remain deeply connected to what matters while still allowing everything around it to evolve.
A family can have strong values while its children grow into completely different people. A business can have a clear purpose while changing the way it operates. A home can hold memories of one chapter while becoming something new in the next.
Travertine's symbolism sits beautifully inside that tension.
The earth gives us somewhere to stand. Water reminds us that life will continue moving whether we resist it or not.
Perhaps real grounding is not trying to stop change.
Perhaps it is knowing what remains important while change is happening.
Why Can Travertine Make a Space Feel Calm Before You Know Its Meaning?
Sometimes our bodies notice a material before our minds begin explaining it.
We have all entered spaces that simply feel good.
Nothing obvious has happened. We have not measured the proportions or consciously studied the materials. Yet something feels settled.
Natural materials can contribute to that experience because they do not present us with perfect mechanical repetition. Travertine contains variation, texture, openings and tonal movement. Light behaves differently across its surface throughout the day. There is enough variation to hold our attention without demanding it.
Then we discover that the stone is spiritually connected with grounding, calm and patience, and the meaning can feel strangely familiar.
Perhaps that is because the symbolism has given language to something we had already experienced.
Sometimes understanding a material does not change how it makes us feel. It helps us understand why we felt something in the first place.
What Can Travertine Teach Us About Patience?
Travertine reminds us that meaningful things do not always reveal themselves quickly.
This can be difficult to remember in a world built around speed.
We expect answers immediately. We compare our progress with other people's finished results. We become frustrated when businesses, relationships, homes or even ourselves take longer to develop than we imagined.
But some things cannot be rushed without changing what they become.
Trust takes time. Expertise takes time. A family develops its traditions through repetition. A new house takes time before it stops feeling new and begins feeling like home.
Even our understanding of ourselves changes slowly.
Patience does not mean abandoning ambition. It means recognising that something can still be developing even when the result is not yet visible.
Travertine carries that idea naturally. Its beauty comes from process rather than immediacy.
There are periods in life when we need to push forward.
There are others when we need enough wisdom to let something develop.
Knowing the difference may be one of the hardest forms of patience.
Why Do Travertine's Natural Openings Matter?
The openings and irregularities in travertine are not interruptions to its character. They are part of its character.
There is something wonderfully human about that.
We spend enormous amounts of energy trying to close every gap in our lives.
Every silence needs filling. Every uncertainty needs an answer. Every free hour becomes something to organise. Every imperfection becomes something to correct.
But space has value too.
A pause in conversation can allow someone else to speak. An empty afternoon can become time with family. A period without a clear answer can eventually lead us somewhere we would never have planned.
Even within a home, emptiness matters. A room needs space around furniture. Objects become more meaningful when they are not surrounded by hundreds of others. Stillness gives us somewhere to rest our attention.
Travertine does not need every opening erased before it can be beautiful.
Perhaps neither do our lives.
Not every space needs filling. Not every uncertainty needs solving immediately. Sometimes what we leave open gives everything around it room to breathe.
Why Is Travertine Connected With Renewal?
Travertine's relationship with flowing water gives it a natural spiritual connection with renewal, movement and beginning again.
Water rarely stays where we put it.
It finds another direction. It moves around obstacles, changes course and continues.
There are periods in life when that idea becomes particularly meaningful.
A relationship changes. Children leave home. Work takes an unexpected direction. A plan we were certain about no longer makes sense. Something ends before we were ready for it to end.
Moving forward does not require pretending the previous chapter did not matter.
Water leaves something behind.
So do we.
Experience remains. Memory remains. Knowledge remains. The people we have loved and the things we have built become part of what comes next, even when life itself changes direction.
Renewal is not starting again as though nothing happened.
It is continuing with everything the previous chapter taught us.
What Does Travertine Mean Within a Family Home?
Within a family home, travertine can represent the calm foundation underneath a life that never actually stops changing.
Homes move through seasons.
There may be years when toys are everywhere and quiet feels impossible. Then suddenly the house becomes quieter and we would give almost anything to hear that noise again.
There are rushed breakfasts, people running late, friends arriving, birthdays, disagreements, celebrations, illnesses, Sunday lunches and completely unremarkable evenings when everyone happens to be home.
While we are living those moments, many of them feel ordinary.
Later, they become the things we remember.
This is where travertine's relationship with time becomes especially meaningful. A stone formed through accumulation becomes part of a home where another kind of accumulation begins: shared time.
A coffee table may sit quietly at the centre of thousands of evenings. A side table beside a chair can become part of someone's morning ritual. Stone beside a bath can become associated with the few quiet minutes someone manages to claim at the end of a demanding day.
None of these moments appears particularly significant by itself.
Together, they become a life.
Why Does Travertine Feel So Natural Beside Water and Places of Rest?
Travertine's own relationship with mineral-rich water gives it a beautiful symbolic connection with bathing, restoration and the moments when we allow ourselves to slow down.
A bath is one of the simplest examples.
Nothing productive needs to happen there.
There is no performance required. No audience. No result to measure.
Perhaps there is only warm water, a towel, a book, a glass placed on a stone side table and twenty minutes when the day finally becomes quiet.
Those moments can look insignificant compared with everything else we are trying to achieve.
They are not.
Rest allows us to return to our families with more patience. Stillness gives us room to think. Time alone can remind us who we are outside the demands placed upon us.
Travertine belongs naturally within those spaces because its symbolism asks very little from us.
Stay grounded.
Allow things to move.
Rest when you need to.
Then continue.
Why Might One Piece of Travertine Feel Right and Another Not?
Because natural stone is individual, and our response to it is individual too.
Some people are drawn to pronounced pores and strong movement. Others prefer quieter surfaces and subtle tonal variation. One piece might immediately feel warm and familiar while another, technically similar stone leaves us unmoved.
There does not always need to be a rational explanation.
Understanding density, finish, care and suitability matters when choosing natural stone furniture. But knowledge does not need to remove instinct from the decision.
We live with these materials.
We see them in morning light and evening light. We touch them. We place our belongings on them. Eventually they become so familiar that we stop consciously looking at them.
If one piece continually draws you back, that response matters.
Sometimes attraction comes before understanding.
What Happens to Travertine's Meaning as We Live With It?
Eventually, the stone's ancient relationship with time begins to meet our own.
At first, we may choose travertine because we love its colour, texture or meaning.
Years later, those may no longer be the first things we see.
We see the house where we first owned it. The child who used to sit beside it. The coffee someone always placed in the same spot. The friend who came for dinner and somehow stayed until midnight. The quiet morning after a difficult year. The people who once filled the room.
This is when furniture becomes more than material and form.
A stone created as water moved through the earth has spent years sitting quietly while another kind of movement happened around it.
Children grew.
People changed.
Families expanded.
Some people arrived and others left.
Ordinary days accumulated.
And eventually we realised those ordinary days were the story.
Travertine begins with water moving through the earth, leaving something behind as it passes. Perhaps our lives are not so different.
The days move forward. The people we love grow and change. Moments accumulate almost unnoticed until one day we realise those layers have become our life.
Travertine reminds us not to rush through the very time we may one day wish we could have back.
Designed to Endure.
John Leighton.
FURTHER READING
Vo Trong Nghia Architects — Vietnam
Architecture practice known for bringing vegetation, natural materials and passive design into contemporary buildings while exploring a closer relationship between people and nature.
votrongnghia.com
Wallmakers — India
Architecture practice founded by Vinu Daniel, recognised for experimental buildings created through earth, reclaimed materials and construction approaches deeply connected to place.
wallmakers.org
Sumaya Dabbagh / Dabbagh Architects — United Arab Emirates
Dubai-based architectural practice whose work explores material, culture, spirituality and place, including spaces where light and material contribute strongly to human experience.
dabbagharchitects.com
Marina Tabassum Architects — Bangladesh
Dhaka-based architecture practice recognised for buildings shaped by climate, local materials, community and a deep understanding of place.
marinatabassumarchitects.com
Diébédo Francis Kéré / Kéré Architecture — Burkina Faso / Germany
Architecture practice internationally recognised for combining local materials, climate intelligence, craftsmanship and community in buildings designed around human connection.
kerearchitecture.com
Estudio Macías Peredo — Mexico
Mexican architecture studio whose work explores material, shadow, landscape and regional building traditions through spaces with a strong sense of permanence and place.
maciasperedoyasociados.com
Pezo von Ellrichshausen — Chile
Architecture and art studio based in southern Chile, known for elemental buildings where material, geometry, landscape and human experience are closely intertwined.
pezo.cl
Solano Benítez / Gabinete de Arquitectura — Paraguay
Paraguayan architecture practice celebrated for transforming familiar materials through experimentation, craft and an understanding of how structure and material can shape communal space.
gabinetedearquitectura.com
Tosin Oshinowo / Oshinówò Studio — Nigeria
Lagos-based architect and designer whose work considers identity, culture, material and the relationship between contemporary design and its local context.
oshinowostudio.com
MASS Design Group — Rwanda / United States
Architecture and design collective exploring how buildings, landscape, material and community can contribute to human dignity and social connection.
massdesigngroup.org
Studio Contra — South Africa
Johannesburg-based architecture practice exploring contemporary African architecture through material, landscape, climate and the cultural conditions of place.
studiocontra.co.za
Natura Futura Arquitectura — Ecuador
Ecuadorian architecture practice creating socially and environmentally responsive projects shaped by local materials, everyday life and the communities occupying them.
naturafuturarq.com
Anupama Kundoo Architects — India / Germany
Architecture practice exploring material research, craft, time and resource-conscious construction, with a strong focus on the relationship between making, people and place.
anupamakundoo.com
Formafatal — Czech Republic / Costa Rica
Architecture and design studio working across contrasting landscapes, often using natural materials, texture and climate to create strong connections between interior life and the surrounding environment.
formafatal.cz
AGi Architects — Kuwait / Spain
International architecture practice founded in Kuwait whose work explores contemporary life, cultural context, climate and the relationship between private and shared spaces.
agi-architects.com
John Leighton is not affiliated with the external studios, practices or publications referenced above.
COMMUNITY
Styling News explores the questions that come up when choosing furniture, materials and the way they work within a home. If there is something you would like us to explain in a future article, we welcome the conversation.
Do you ever find yourself rushing towards what comes next — and what helps you slow down enough to notice the life already happening around you?
At John Leighton we design furniture around natural material, considered form and the belief that the pieces we live with should have a reason to remain.