Not sure how or where to begin…nor where it will all end, but this is not a one week, one month, or even one year challenge. This will be for a lifetime, unless we find a better course.
After years of doing well at our business, enough to spend time outside of staring at a screen for 12 hours a day, I began to contemplate certain aspects of life beyond putting food in my family’s mouth. I started to wonder if I had so much in life wrong by acting just like everyone else around me. That’s a trap you know. Keeping up with the Joneses is I think I started to realize that there’s so much more that could be done in life that few people ever even try, esp in certain areas of life. Maybe it’s not what goes into a man’s pocket, but what comes out of it that matters.
Anyways, curious if anyone else is trying something adventurous like this. I will admit, I have not heard of anyone doing this, but would really like to know. I like to connect with people that think like us. We can learn together, make friends, and create new challenges and opportunities.
Which is more amazing? Which is more challenging? Flying around the world in a hot air balloon, or, not wasting money? Super-rich people that live modestly is very rare. Not one, but then maybe you don’t hear about that kind of thing because it’s boring. Some are closer than others I think (all failed as far as I can see).
So, getting rid of stuff is phase one.
Having a normal life is hard to do in a house that’s 2x the average American home, regardless of kid count.
The first thought was to give our kids a “normal” lifestyle; something that they would be used to when they got older and had their own families, and didn’t have to have shell shock syndrome of being average, nor the idea that they had to own x amount of stuff to have a family, be average, or be successful. Problem is, even the concept of average is a huge myth in this country as well, ignoring the fact we’re one of the richest in the world, most people I talk to think they are below average, or average.
Then I started to think, well, maybe living below average, well below average is even better. But that is incredibly hard for most people to grasp, let alone do. I don’t like average. I believe in doing exceptional things in all important aspects of life.
So here we are selling the house, looking to move into as small of a house as…well, cozy comfy, selling the cars except for one maybe, collectables, excess books, and anything that does not add measurable value to my life, or don’t think the kids can learn from.
I cleaned out most of my clothes last week and want to get down to maybe three or four pairs of clothes. I want to get the kids to that point as well (or at least putting away the extra clothes until current ones are ruined).
The kids are slowly getting rid of toys. Been looking for a way to cut out presents without inflicting too much trauma 🙂 So, the two things we are doing are:
- Giving a handmade gift, preferably with materials lying around the house.
- Gift recycling, which is to simply take a toy you think another kid would like, then wrap and re-give.
Living out of an RV for a year is on the plan tentatively, and that could help expedite this whole process a bit; but living in a tee-pee, cliff dwelling, or other primitive (yet safe) shelter sounds like fun, at least for awhile. Maybe a small cabin, or nice yurt would work out for a longer term setup. Rather cheap even for a nice one it seems. I’d like to build it myself. Cut down some trees, etc.. but I’m not that brave…yet.
How much can I get rid of, I think to myself? Well, we could live out of a backpack, but not sure that’s good plan right now, but moving to a third-world to do volunteer work during the whole summer is high on my list, but need to learn more about that. That could provide a better perspective for sure. Funny thing though. If you live in a hut in Central America, that’s fine, or maybe even cool, but if you do that here, you are weird–seriously?
Although I wouldn’t miss the internet, my work requires a computer, but at a minimum will switch to a flip phone, or no phone at all in the next year.
We just cut cable TV, and we are discussing about getting rid of completely (video games too). I think we will need to create some other incentives for now to substitute the sugar-like craving for TV, at least until the lack of TV seems normal. Even now, kids only watch once a week, so might not be that hard.
I guess part of this is due to the fact that we live in a world where the brain-sugar of recreation, entertainment, and absence of meaning work is growing rapidly, like corn-syrup has been slowing increasing to our processed foods–the constant need for something funner, or “this is getting boring” and “there is nothing to do” for kids and adults is a bottomless pit, esp. as the cost for increasing fun continually reduce; and the ante is always increasing (just read that Amazon and Netflix want to turn TV into videogame like experiences to get more revenues, because as we all know, video games are more addictive than TV in general) and I am not sure why I am not hearing about these downward trends more.
It’s not just about getting rid of stuff, but its also about the end of buying stuff. And when I say stuff, I mean stuff.
I want to live healthier, without the constant stimulus of modern society. Cities, and constant commotion plus access to entertainment likely worsen this stimulus effect. Can we still enjoy going outside to just look at the sunset, maybe talking to neighbors, while playing with the kids in the outdoors on a daily basis? True, living out in the country probably could help this goal as well.
But a huge part of this change is realizing that what we have in life is truly a gift. I’m sure the chances of someone in Bangladesh has a much less likelihood of having decent income than most of us here in America, so if I can’t choose where I was born, and likelihood of being rich, why should I choose to spend it on myself, as if I earned it out of pure merit? Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn’t. Either way, its nice to know I can try to find ways to use our money to try to help others (much more difficult than it sounds really).
It may sound funny, but when my wife did not want me to sell the Z06 Corvette (sounds backwards to most, I know), I said, “we’ll it’s a lot of fun, but I just don’t think Jesus would drive a Corvette if he was alive today :)” We’ll I might need to own an ATV if I have a farm, so I still might have a little fun, in the name or work.
I probably won’t get rid of health insurance until I figure out a good alternative. I mean, it paid for my cancer therapy, and used it for a couple heart surgeries, so it’s served its purpose, but would rather a local , community based system, but until that arrives…
Ultimately, I am not looking to get rid of everything, nor every experience, but if we could be self sufficient in a tiny space, and live at a very low cost of living, finding meaning in simplicity, that is a goal. We even had kids in public and private school up till recently. Now we found greater value in connecting and raising our kids even more so.
So while “buying stuff” will be curbed greatly, paying for “experiences” is a tougher line to draw. But in the end, duying stuff, whether tangible or just a memory is basically the same thing.
Do I need to have my kids go ride dolphins (yes, you can really do this); tour the USA/national parks in a car; go to some pricy amusement part; or go to the beach to look for starfish and sand-dollars? No.
We all survived without traveling a few miles from home for as long as history, and we weren’t any dumber for it. But I will say, keeping these trips focused, off-the-commercial/brand-grid, and cost-effective for the most part is the goal. Hopefully can use them to further enhance the main goals, instead of just having fun. Local camping sounds fun.
Wait, there’s more! While many in this country will complain about inequality, unfairness, etc… as a 40 year old, with a bunch of kids, I want to live as affordably as possible within reason, even if that reason is further off the spectrum than most. But how far should we go? Can I even live comfortably at poverty levels even?? That might be the next challenge.
Americans spend way more than they need to, and complain they don’t have enough. I can say that because I was saving enough to retired when I was making very little, living in a small, old condo that cost us $69k (10 years ago); we’d still live there today if we could fit.
I think the hardest part about this is not being able to draw a line in the sand in relation to one’s needs/wants, because without it, the line always moves. There are no absolutes. I mean, who feels that they can easily live without a phone, or the internet these days (I could if my job did not require it)? In 100 more years, it’s going to look absolutely nuts. We went from riding horses, to flying to the moon in under 1 lifetime.
I’m sure there are unlimited examples of “civilization creep” but here’s a simple hypothetical one:
- Early on humanity simply found food growing in the wild;
- Next, we learned the art of agriculture;
- then we expanded the growth of a single food items into a recipe;
- that dish grows into a meal with multiple side-dishes;
- farming declines and we buy it from farmers instead of growing it ourselves;
- a growing number of spices are added, hence exploration of the Western hemisphere;
- refrigeration is finally invented;
- global transport improves the spread of ingredients and cuisine;
- additional processing turns food into premade ingredients like spaghetti sauce;
- it really starts to ramp up as entire meals get pre-made and packaged, from simple cereal to complete frozen dinners;
- for better tasting food, others were paid to cook and clean up after us, which is called, “eating out,” leaving us absolutely no work left in the process of eating other than the eating part. I know several people who eat out at least once daily if not for every meal.
- Only a direct infusion of nutrients and a brain shot of pleasure is left
It is true that some of these, like growing wheat, have freed up a lot of time (99% more efficient today), but the idea is that somehow people always find ways to create new needs that did not exist before. Fukuoka, a Japanese government agriculturalist, said there was no real need to free up so much time and such urbanization actually replaces the enjoyment of growing one’s food. Growing food is not suffering, and much of the world’s poorer farmers grow food to survive. I wonder what else is considered suffering that really isn’t.
Besides efficiency which is useful, I think the other half is people want to work as little as possible. Not sure if it has a name, but I will call it the “lazy-mans-dream.”
Even if I buy spaghetti and spaghetti sauce pre-made and think you are really different that eat out a lot, but I suggest that you are only a little behind, and ultimately, just like everyone else in the long run. Eventually, eating out will be normal, and the concept of cooking food at home will sound like someone today that grows their own cotton, makes their own fabric, and then sews just to make their own clothes–kind of outrageous. Okay, I admit, we will all have robot slaves to do our bidding while we surf YouTube all day. Either the concept of work is about to evaporate, or jobs will be artificial in some ways (not unlike many jobs today).
Another part of this mega-scheme is self-reliance, and self-sufficiency, and above all a life that revolves around a multi-generational, family-culture, not a world-culture. These days, life is increasingly about non-family relationships, whether that’s through government involvement, urbanization, increasing specialization (for work), outsourcing the care of less-abled family members (elderly homes, and daycare), and a staggering growth of virtual friendships with people we pretend to know and give preference to our time with .
A life that’s directly connected with what I produce feels more alive to me. The world is growing increasingly abstract, and I don’t really enjoy that overall. Perhaps an easy thing to relate to is store-bought birthday cards. What a better way to tell someone you care about them than to have someone else write it for you because either you didn’t want to take the time to write something personally meaningful, or just too lazy to. I don’t buy such cards since I don’t enjoy receiving them either.
Part of this plan includes moving to somewhere where we can grow our own food (intensive and/or similar agriculture) with a compact approach. I think I could do it here in the city, but too many other things pushing us out west.
Finally, I recall as a student thinking, if I ever made a lot, I would want to live at, or below the American average because I felt it was better thing to do. I could choose to try to live at the world average, but kinda hard in an industrialized world. Who else has done that?