The Difference: Living Well vs. Doing Well | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss “From all your herds, a cup or two of milk, From all your granaries, a loaf of bread, In all your palace, only half a bed: Can man use more? And do you own the rest?” — Ancient Sanskrit poem Total post read time: 5 minutes. Living well is quite different from “doing well.” In the quest to get ahead — destination often unknown — it’s easy to have life pass you by while you’re focused on other things. This post is intended as a reminder and a manifesto: keep it simple. This is written by Rolf Potts, author of my perennial favorite and heavily highlighted Vagabonding. In the below piece, I’ve bolded some particular parts that have had an impact on my life. Enter Rolf. ### In March of 1989, the Exxon Valdez struck a reef off the coast of Alaska, resulting in the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Initially viewed as an ecological disaster, this catastrophe did wonders to raise environmental awareness among average Americans. As television images of oil-choked sea otters and dying shore birds were beamed across the country, pop-environmentalism grew into a national craze. Instead of conserving more and consuming less, however, many Americans sought to save the earth by purchasing “environmental” products. Energy-efficient home appliances flew off the shelves, health food sales boomed, and reusable canvas shopping bags became vogue in strip malls from Jacksonville to Jackson Hole. Credit card companies began to earmark a small percentage of profits for conservation groups, thus encouraging consumers to “help the environment” by striking off on idealistic shopping binges. Such shopping sprees and health food purchases did absolutely nothing to improve the state of the planet, of course — but most people managed to feel a little better about the situation without having to make any serious lifestyle changes. This notion — that material investment is somehow more important to life than personal investment — is exactly what leads so many of us to believe we could never afford to go vagabonding. The more our life options get paraded around as consumer options, the more we forget that there’s a difference between the two. Thus, having convinced ourselves that buying things is the only way to play an active role in the world, we fatalistically conclude that we’ll never be rich enough to purchase a long-term travel experience. Fortunately, the world need not be a consumer product. As with environmental integrity, long-term travel isn’t something you buy into: it’s something you give to yourself. Indeed, the freedom to go vagabonding has never been determined by income level, but through simplicity — the conscious decision of how to use what income you have. And, contrary to popular stereotypes, seeking simplicity doesn’t require that you become a monk, a subsistence forager, or a wild-eyed revolutionary. Nor does it mean that you must unconditionally avoid the role of consumer. Rather, simplicity merely requires a bit of personal sacrifice: an adjustment of your habits and routines within consumer society itself. “Our crude civilization engenders a multitude of wants… Our forefathers forged chains of duty and habit, which bind us notwithstanding our boasted freedom, and we ourselves in desperation, add link to link, groaning and making medicinal laws for relief.” — John Muir, Kindred and Related Spirits At times, the biggest challenge in embracing simplicity will be the vague feeling of isolation that comes with it, since private sacrifice doesn’t garner much attention in the frenetic world of mass culture. Jack Kerouac’s legacy as a cultural icon is a good example of this. Arguably the most famous American vagabonder of the 20th century, Kerouac vividly captured the epiphanies of hand-to-mouth travel in books like On the Road and Lonesome Traveler. In Dharma Bums, he wrote about the joy of living with people who blissfully ignore “the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want…general junk you always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of [it] impersonal in a system of work, produce, consume.” Despite his observance of material simplicity, however, Kerouac found that his personal life – the life that had afforded him the freedom to travel – was soon overshadowed by a more fashionable (and marketable) public vision of his travel lifestyle. Convertible cars, jazz records, marijuana (and, later, Gap khakis), ultimately came to represent the mystical “It” that he and Neal Cassidy sought in On the Road. As his Beat cohort William S. Burroughs was to point out years after his death, part of Kerouac’s mystique became inseparable from the idea that he “opened a million coffee bars and sold a million pairs of Levi’s to both sexes.” In some ways, of course, coffee bars, convertibles and marijuana are all part of what made travel appealing to Kerouac’s readers. That’s how marketing (intentional and otherwise) works. But these aren’t the things that made travel possible for Kerouac. What made travel possible was that he knew how neither self nor wealth can be measured in terms of what you consume or own. Even the downtrodden souls on the fringes of society, he observed, had something the rich didn’t: Time. This notion – the notion that “riches” don’t necessarily make you wealthy – is as old as society itself. The ancient Hindu Upanishads refer disdainfully to “that chain of possessions wherewith men bind themselves, and beneath which they sink”; ancient Hebrew scriptures declare that “whoever loves money never has money enough.” Jesus noted that it’s pointless for a man to “gain the whole world, yet lose his very self”, and the Buddha whimsically pointed out that seeking happiness in one’s material desires is as absurd as “suffering because a banana tree will not bear mangoes.” Despite several millennia of such warnings, however, there is still an overwhelming social compulsion – an insanity of consensus, if you will – to get rich from life rather than live richly, to “do well” in the world instead of living well. And, in spite of the fact that America is famous for its unhappy rich people, most of us remain convinced that just a little more money will set life right. In this way, the messianic metaphor of modern life becomes the lottery – that outside chance that the right odds will come together to liberate us from financial worries once and for all. “Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing…” — Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road” Fortunately, we were all born with winning tickets – and cashing them in is a simple matter of altering our cadence as we walk through the world. Vagabonding sage Ed Buryn knew as much: “By switching to a new game, which in this case involves vagabonding, time becomes the only possession and everyone is equally rich in it by biological inheritance. Money, of course, is still needed to survive, but time is what you need to live. So, save what little money you possess to meet basic survival requirements, but spend your time lavishly in order to create the life values that make the fire worth the candle. Dig?” Dug. And the bonus to all of this is that – as you of sow your future with rich fields of time – you are also planting the seeds of personal growth that will gradually bloom as you travel into the world. * * * In a way, simplifying your life for vagabonding is easier than it sounds. This is because travel by its very nature demands simplicity. If you don’t believe this, just go home and try stuffing everything you own into a backpack. This will never work, because no matter how meagerly you live at home, you can’t match the scaled-down minimalism that travel requires. You can, however, set the process of reduction and simplification into motion while you’re still at home. This is useful on several levels: Not only does it help you to save up travel money, but it helps you realize how independent you are of your possessions and your routines. In this way, it prepares you mentally for the realities of the road, and makes travel a dynamic extension of the life-alterations you began at home. “Travel can be a kind of monasticism on the move: On the road, we often live more simply, with no more possessions than we can carry, and surrendering ourselves to chance. This is what Camus meant when he said that “what gives value to travel is fear” — disruption, in other words, (or emancipation) from circumstance, and all the habits behind which we hide. — Pico Iyer, “Why We Travel” As with, say, giving up coffee, simplifying your life will require a somewhat difficult consumer withdrawal period. Fortunately, your impending travel experience will give you a very tangible and rewarding long-term goal that helps ease the discomfort. Over time, as you reap the sublime rewards of simplicity, you’ll begin to wonder how you ever put up with such a cluttered life in the first place. On a basic level, there are three general methods to simplifying your life: stopping expansion, reining in your routine, and reducing clutter. The easiest part of this process is stopping expansion. This means that – in anticipation of vagabonding – you don’t add any new possessions to your life, regardless of how tempting they might seem. Naturally, this applies to things like cars and home entertainment systems, but this also applies to travel accessories. Indeed, one of the biggest mistakes people make in anticipation of vagabonding is to indulge in a vicarious travel buzz by investing in water filters, sleeping bags, and travel-boutique wardrobes. In reality, vagabonding runs smoothest on a bare minimum of gear – and even multi-year trips require little initial investment beyond sturdy footwear and a dependable travel bag or backpack. While you’re curbing the material expansion of your life, you should also take pains to rein in the unnecessary expenses of your weekly routine. Simply put, this means living more humbly (even if you aren’t humble) and investing the difference into your travel fund. Instead of eating at restaurants, for instance, cook at home and pack a lunch to work or school. Instead of partying at nightclubs and going out to movies or pubs, entertain at home with friends or family. Wherever you see the chance to eliminate an expensive habit, take it. The money you save as a result will pay handsomely in travel time. In this way, I ate lot of baloney sandwiches (and missed out on a lot of grunge-era Seattle nightlife) while saving up for a vagabonding stint after college — but the ensuing eight months of freedom on the roads of North America more than made up for it. “Very many people spend money in ways quite different from those that their natural tastes would enjoin, merely because the respect of their neighbors depends upon their possession of a good car and their ability to give good dinners. As a matter of fact, any man who can obviously afford a car but genuinely prefers travels or a good library will in the end be much more respected than if he behaved exactly like everyone else.” — Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness Perhaps the most challenging step in keeping things simple is to reduce clutter – to downsize what you already own. As Thoreau observed, downsizing can be the most vital step in winning the freedom to change your life: “I have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all,” he wrote in Walden, “who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or sliver fetters.” How you reduce your “dross” in anticipation of travel will depend on your situation. If you’re young, odds are you haven’t accumulated enough to hold you down (which, incidentally, is a big reason why so many vagabonders tend to be young). If you’re not-so-young, you can re-create the carefree conditions of youth by jettisoning the things that aren’t necessary to your basic well-being. For much of what you own, garage sales and on-line auctions can do wonders to unclutter your life (and score you an extra bit of cash to boot). Homeowners can win their travel freedom by renting out their houses; those who rent accommodation can sell, store, or lend out the things that might bind them to one place. An additional consideration in life-simplification is debt. As Laurel Lee wryly observed in Godspeed, “cities are full of those who have been caught in monthly payments for avocado green furniture sets.” Thus, if at all possible, don’t let avocado green furniture sets (or any other seemingly innocuous indulgence) dictate the course of your life by forcing you into ongoing cycles of production and consumption. If you’re already in debt, work your way out of it – and stay out. If you have a mortgage or other long-term debt, devise a situation (such as property rental) that allows you to be independent of its obligations for long periods of time. Being free from debt’s burdens simply gives you more vagabonding options. And, for that matter, more life options. * * * “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self Reliance” As you simplify your life and look forward to spending your new wealth of time, you’re likely to get a curious reaction from your friends and family. On one level, they will express enthusiasm for your impending adventures. But on another level, they might take your growing freedom as a subtle criticism of their own way of life. Because your fresh worldview might appear to call their own values into question (or, at least, force them to consider those values in a new light), they will tend to write you off as irresponsible and self-indulgent. Let them. As I’ve said before, vagabonding is not an ideology, a balm for societal ills, nor a token of social status. Vagabonding is, was, and always will be a private undertaking – and its goal is not to improve your life in relation to your neighbors, but in relation to yourself. Thus, if your neighbors consider your travels foolish, don’t waste your time trying to convince them otherwise. Instead, the only sensible reply is to quietly enrich your life with the myriad opportunities that vagabonding provides. Interestingly, some of the harshest responses I’ve received in reaction to my vagabonding life have come while traveling. Once, at Armageddon (the site in Israel; not the battle at the end of the world), I met an American aeronautical engineer who was so tickled he had negotiated 5 days of free time into a Tel Aviv consulting trip that he spoke of little else as we walked through the ruined city. When I eventually mentioned that I’d been traveling around Asia for the past 18 months, he looked at me like I’d slapped him. “You must be filthy rich,” he said acidly. “Or maybe,” he added, giving me the once-over, “your mommy and daddy are.” I tried to explain how two years of teaching English in Korea had funded my freedom, but the engineer would have none of it. Somehow, he couldn’t accept that two years of any kind of honest work could have funded 18 months (and counting) of travel. He didn’t even bother sticking around for the real kicker: In those 18 months of travel, my day-to-day costs were significantly cheaper than day-to-day life would have cost me back in the United States. The secret to my extraordinary thrift was neither secret nor extraordinary: I had tapped into that vast well of free time simply by forgoing a few comforts as I traveled. Instead of luxury hotels, I slept in clean, basic hostels and guesthouses. Instead of flying from place to place, I took local buses, trains, and share-taxis. Instead of dining at fancy restaurants, I ate food from street-vendors and local cafeterias. Occasionally, I traveled on foot, slept out under the stars, and dined for free at the stubborn insistence of local hosts. In what ultimately amounted to over two years of travel in Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, my lodging averaged out to just under $5 a night, my meals cost well under $1 a plate, and my total expenses rarely exceeded $1000 a month. “When I was very young a big financier once asked me what I would like to do, and I said, ‘To travel.’ ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘it is very expensive; one must have a lot of money to do that.’ He was wrong. For there are two kinds of travelers; the Comfortable Voyager, round whom a cloud of voracious expenses hums all the time, and the man who shifts for himself and enjoys the little discomforts as a change from life’s routine.” — Ralph Bagnold, Libyan Sands Granted, I have simple tastes – and I didn’t linger long in expensive places – but there was nothing exceptional in the way I traveled. In fact, entire multi-national backpacker circuits (not to mention budget guidebook publishing empires) have been created by the simple abundance of such travel bargains in the developing world. For what it costs to fill your gas-tank back home, for example you can take a train from one end of China to the other. For the cost of a home-delivered pepperoni pizza, you can eat great meals for a week in Brazil. And, for a month’s rent in any major American city, you can spend a year in a beach hut in Indonesia. Moreover, even the industrialized parts of the world host enough hostel networks, bulk transportation discounts, and camping opportunities make long-term travel affordable. Ultimately, you may well discover that vagabonding on the cheap becomes your favorite way to travel, even if given more expensive options. Indeed, not only does simplicity save you money and buy you time, it makes you more adventuresome, forces you into sincere contact with locals, and allows you the independence to follow your passions and curiosities down exciting new roads. In this way, simplicity – both at home and on the road – affords you the time to seek renewed meaning in an oft-neglected commodity that can’t be bought at any price: life itself. # # # Resources for lifestyle simplicity [Note from Tim: I took Walden with me, along with Vagabonding, when I traveled the world beginning in 2004. Less is More came a few months later, and I still reread it every six months or so.] Walden, by Henry David Thoreau The philosophical account of Thoreau’s experiment in anti-materialist living. An American literary classic for over 150 years. Less Is More: The Art of Voluntary Poverty: An Anthology of Ancient and Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity, edited by Goldian Vandenbroeck (Inner Traditions, 1996) Quotes and essays on the value of simplicity, from the likes of Socrates, Shakespeare, St. Francis, Benjamin Franklin, and Mohandas Gandhi — as well as the Bible, the Dhammapada, the Tao Te Ching, and the Bhagavad Gita. Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, by Joe Dominguez, Vicki Robin (Penguin USA, 2008) A best-selling book that uses a nine-step process to demonstrate how most people are making a “dying” instead of a living. Practical pointers for achieving financial independence by altering your lifestyle. Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich, by Duane Elgin (Quill, 1993) First published in 1981, this is a popular reference and inspiration for those looking to live a simpler life. Strongly themed toward environmental sustainability. The Simple Living Guide: A Sourcebook for Less Stressful, More Joyful Living, by Janet Luhrs (Broadway Books, 1997) Luhrs is the founder and publisher of The Simple Living Journal (and the companion website). Book contains tips for living fully and well through simplicity. Budgeting and money management The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Living on a Budget, by Peter J. Sander, Jennifer Basye Sander (Alpha Books, 2005) A concise guide to planning and abiding by a day-to-day budget. The Budget Kit: The Common Cents Money Management Workbook, by Judy Lawrence (Kaplan, 2008) Easy-to-use tips for managing your finances and getting the most out of your income. The Complete Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift As a Viable Alternative Lifestyle by Amy Dacyczyn (Random House, 1999) Nine hundred pages of compiled tips for frugal living. How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously, by Jerrold Mundis (Bantam, 2003) This book helps you get out of debt, stay out of debt, and live prosperously. Generation Debt: Take Control of Your Money, Carmen Wong Ulrich (Business Plus, 2006) Personal financial advice for young adults. The Dollar Stretcher An online resource for saving money in day-to-day life. Weekly columns on thrift and simplicity. Get Rich Slowly A detailed blog with personal finance tips. Vagabonding for seniors Exploritas The world’s largest educational and travel organization for adults 55 and over. Offers 10,000 programs a year in over 100 countries. A good way for traveling seniors to get a taste of other cultures before striking off on their own. State Department Travel Tips for Older Americans Posted online, this tip sheet is a useful primer for older independent travelers. Topics covered include trip preparation, passport and visas, health, money and valuables, safety precautions, and shopping. Transitions Abroad’s Best Senior Travel Websites Extensive rundown of links, resources and articles about senior travel. Lonely Planet’s older travelers’ forum An online message board for senior travelers. AARP Travel Products, services and discounts for travelers aged 50 and over. Boomeropia Online travel resources for Baby Boomers. Vagabonding with children Lonely Planet Travel With Children, by Cathy Lanigan (Lonely Planet, 2002) A practical guide to the challenges and joys of traveling with children, including trip preparation and kid-friendly destinations. Gutsy Mamas: Travel Tips and Wisdom for Mothers on the Road, by Marybeth Bond (Travelers’ Tales, 1997) Inspirational and informative advice on staying healthy on the road, traveling to third world countries (and close to home), and keeping children of all ages entertained and adults energized. Your Child Abroad: A Travel Health Guide, by Jane Wilson-Howarth, Matthew Ellis. (Bradt Publications, 2005) Accessible and practical health information for parents traveling with children to far-flung areas of the world. One Year Off: Leaving It All Behind for a Round-the-World Journey with Our Children, by David Elliot Cohen (Simon & Schuster, 1999) When David Elliot Cohen turned 40, he quit his job, sold his house and car and left to travel the world — with his wife and three kids (aged 8, 7, and 2) in tow. A first-hand account of how vagabonding exotic lands can be a family experience. Take Your Kids to Europe: How to Travel Safely (and Sanely) in Europe with Your Children, by Cynthia Harriman (Globe Pequot, 2007) A book of practical tips for traveling families traveling to Europe on limited budgets. Adventuring With Children: An Inspirational Guide to World Travel and the Outdoors, by Nan Jeffrey (Avalon, 1995) A classic book of advice on roaming the world with children, including preparation tips and adventurous family destinations. Family Travel: The Farther You Go, the Closer You Get, by Laura Manske (Travelers’ Tales, 2000) A collection of literary tales about family travel. The Family Sabbatical Handbook: The Budget Guide To Living Abroad With Your Family, by Elisa Bernick (Intrepid Traveler, 2007) Advice for families considering an expatriate stint abroad. WorldTrek: A Family Odyssey, by Russell and Carla Fisher (Rainbow Books, 2007) A family of four spends a year traveling the world. Family Travel Forum Online information on worldwide destinations for adults and children. Features discussion boards and advice for all manner of family travel issues. Traveling Internationally With Your Kids Online resources for traveling overseas with children. Features guidebook recommendations, trip preparation tips, and activity suggestions. Delicious Baby Ideas and stories about how to make travel fun for kids. Families on the Road For families who are on the road fulltime, on extended road trips, or are just dreaming about it. Boostnall Traveling with Children forum An online message board where family travelers can ask questions and share information. Lonely Planet’s Kids to Go Another useful online family-travel message board. Pilgrims’ Progress A Kiwi family with eight kids and a grandpa chronicle their pilgrimage from Singapore to London and beyond — overland all the way. Traveling with Elliot A blog documenting parent-child travel around the globe. Six in the World A family of six, ranging in age from 38 to 4, embarked on an 11-month round-the-world adventure in August 2006. This blog tracks their preparation, travels, and return to the US.
OK, I get the point and agree totally with the simple good life, but why travel? I am just as happy in New Hampshire as I would be in Timbuktu and like my bedroom and its bed better than any hotel, motel or other bed I have ever slept in. Thoreau has a great rep for Waldon Pond. Someone else owned the land, paid the taxes, owned the axe he borrowed, gave him the shack he tore down for building materials and his mother did his laundry and fed him if necessary. That really sounds like "living the simple life" is a myth to me. I do disagree in making most of the area around Waldon Pond a land fill, but progress goes on. Travelers, like priests and politicians, can only exist in a world where someone else does the daily work and builds the trains and hostels,cooks the meals, raises the food and in the end, buries the dead traveler when it is finished. I would rather honor the poor peasant who feeds his family than the "educated" traveler who writes of the peasant. I am sorry but I feel this mindless drivel of simplicity, travel and the good life with its total focus on the individual and the new way of life and the new morality are destroying or may have destroyed our nation. When I see a skate boarder, surfer, break dancer, rap singer and such preform their act, I can't help but think of their success in a more material world, if they had applied the time and effort to a "real world" task. When we try to hire a person to fix power tools, we expect him to be able to read parts breakdowns, use a computer to look up parts and print out estimates, use logic in troubleshooting the problems and figure out what needs to be replaced, know how to replace the parts and what lubrication he will have to use when he puts it back together. Telling us that he is disadvantaged and has great break dance skills just won't get the job done. I know that when we make service calls, sometimes to companies with government contracts and for insurance reason, we need someone without a criminal record and have to ask our applicants. If we can't ask, we just won't hire anyone we don't know. I am 77 years old and have attempted to train 3 different people as my replacement. While all were qualified, none wanted to get their hands "that" dirty or work for the money we could afford to pay them as they could not afford their car, house, college loan, snow mobile etc payments on our salary levels. Perhaps my comments should be in the rant area, but it is very hard to not comment on the new good life.
I agree on many points @duane. Most people have no pride in the work they do. What I took away from it was, creating a good life whether you travel or not. He did his life around travel and used it as an example. It steps away from $$$ into living well, whatever your definition of living well is.
I agree totally with living well and enjoying life instead of chasing some one other persons dreams and I try to live the minimalist life . Lived in this house for 35 years and never had a morgage for example. Took 20 years to get to where we wanted it to be and we are still working on it. I have problems with simplicity and a lot of the minimalist things that go with it. My simplicity in life includes a greenhouse, metal lathe, milling machine, drill press etc. The next persons will contain other objects, farms, animals,looms, welders, fishing boats, computer servers, whatever your dreams and needs are. Usually takes many years, a lot of luck and a lot of grief to figure out what your dream is and what it requires. It seems to me that our society tries to sell you "dreams" like soap and the required expensive tools to go with it. Back packing, snow mobiles, off roading, travel and such come to mind. I have a hard time trying to tell in my readings which are examples of the good life and which are adds for the latest life style and all its trappings. I tend to over react and apoligize if I stepped on someones toes or dreams.
I believe that living well and doing well go hand in hand. I also believe it involves your attitude on things. So regardless of what I have or don't have, if I can live a good life and take care of my family and they can live a good life, wouldn't that be living well? And if I am happy with that, even if I strive more more (or not), wouldn't that be living well? So while I can truly say that in the grand scheme of things, I really do not have a lot (material stuff), I feel very blessed that I have a good and healthy family and we are not wanting for things we need. I am happy and I am pretty sure my family is too. Yes, we always want for more things, but whether we get those things or not is no big deal and really wouldn't change anything. So I think we are living well and doing well at the same time. Just remember, it is not all about money and stuff. I trade money for time spent with the family all the time. And somehow when you make that trade, you often times do not lose the money part in the process.
I laughed when I saw @Ganado's thread. I posted that picture on my FB page this week. IMO there are definitely 2 types of living well, one is living well materialistically and the other is living well spiritually.
I think both are possible. And I don't think most people think about what it is that will make them happy. I think the woman who wrote 'opossum living' lived very well and she was happy. I live a very nice life but I require more than she did. Just different. More about knowing yourself.
Totally agree, we enter this world naked, and we will leave it naked. Couldn't agree more on knowing yourself and being happy with that person. We may all live in our present culture, but we as individuals live our own lives and living well and doing well are our own choices and we set our own goals Living well seems to be the exception in our present society and I think many members of this group are exceptional. Their very act in turning off the tv, cell phone, etc and interacting as humans with other humans and trying to help others find their dreams places them in a very small, very exceptional minority.
Uhh travel, sick of it. It's all I did for years. While some countries are pretty advanced, most of the world outside the US is a huge toilet. And of late it seems that the US is beginning to catch the toilet trend (Detroit, Chicago to name a couple of landmark leftist "success" stories). Other than to see local sites, I never want to travel. I've been from Bangkok to South Africa's Kruger Park, but have never seen the Grand Canyon, although I have lived in the American West for almost 40 years and own property less than 120 miles from it as the crow flies. But it's the minimalist part I could get behind. The regular monthly outflow of money is bankrupting the average American. We need to manouver ourselves into a position where this isn't happening and it requires fewer dollars to maintain a decent, no need for fancy, lifestyle. I see people running down the road with big pickups, campers, towing a nice shiny new speed boat and wonder just how much of that is paid for, and how much they're forced to spend to maintain it all.
@Altoidfishfins IMO the Grand Canyon is not that impressive unless you hike down in it. Personally I like Flagstaff and the surround areas much better. I recall when my oldest was little. We went on a long road trip and had all sorts of baby toys for him to play with. The best thing that kept him happy for hours was an empty cup and a straw. I have heard it many times from parents that on Christmas the kids are happier with a box and the wrapping paper then what was in the box. We start out simple. I have thoughts on this. I think may don't actually like themselves. I have a person that just got married for the 3rd time. She never is without a mate for long. IMO and what I said was you need to like yourself, enjoy being alone with yourself then you can really love someone else. She admitted she can't do it. IMO she bases who she is and her importance on who she is attached to. Her living well & doing well seems to be based on what she can touch in her world. It is not simplistic but possessions. (apologize if I am slightly off subject)
@Motomom34 you are right on target. It's defining what's important. I have an acquaintance like yours. Can't be alone and that's important to her. The problem arises when you think it's the people you are with rather than examining yourself. She and I have had very straight convo's about this. We have concluded I'm crazy for preferring solitude and she is crazy for thinking it's everyone else's fault she preferrs serial marriages over living in sin. (A bit tongue in cheek humor but you get my drift) @altoidsfin travel for travels sake and travel for business aren't very fun. But travel with little or no agenda is fun. There are only 2 things I haven't done yet in the travel department 1] cruise the Panama Canal 2] Scotland distillery tour. Love that single malt! The rest Meh.. I love my home
@Motomom34 Pretty funny that you bring up a box for a Christmas gift. Never raised a family myself, but one year when I was very young my mother got me a large box. I had a blast with it. Such simple things tend to stimulate imagination, lacking in today's culture of glitter.
I'm going to say this and probably get in trouble .... again. Different does not mean better or worse. When you look beyond pop culture (please scratch have deeper than the media before venting, old person, grumpy, younggeneration is bad/stupid/add favorite derogatory term) there are any creative young people. Just because some of us think they are idealistic or unrealistic doesn't mean they won't accomplish their ideals. Some of you have forgotten that in the 50's rock n roll was the 'down fall' of our way of life. And you survived that and so did the world. Many of you have forgotten that the 'me' generation is now in their 60 70 and 80. Change is good and it's our job to make sure the changes include freedom and liberty not tear at each other over generational differences.
Young, old, rich, poor, educated or uneducated, I treasure them all and love their many different views of this world we live in. They bring new perspectives and I hope we all can share, learn and profit from their experiences. It is the politically correct repetition of the mass media, save the spotted skink, stop progress, stop climate change mantra and its interfering with my way of life that is driving me nuts. I am sorry if I am a little touchy about thing like zoning in an "agricultural zone" that will not let you have a rooster, spread fertilizer on you fields, have 4 horses, but limit limit you to 2 cows, no bulls, and so on forever. I am 77 and I must admit, I am totally lost over what is generational change and what is a destruction of a way of life. I may be somewhat paranoid as I was raised listening to my grand fathers stories. His mother was Lakota, married to a German, and the changes in the 1860's and on did not affect her life or his. Her brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and parents ended up on the reservation and their decendents have only recently recovered in any small sense a real way of life.
I would love to do Scotland.. That is about all the travel I want to do, at this time.. However, I do have a motorcycle and there are great area's to ride.. I catch myself thinking of throwing a couple changes of cloths and some camping gear in the saddle bags and taking off, so the urge to put some wind in the face can grow strong.. Take a deep breath and cut some more firewood.. Many years ago, I was living in the city and worked seven days a week with two and sometimes three employers.. Made very good money and put on a lot of weight.. I had no time for the pleasures in life and chose to move to a simpler life.. Again I am buisy all the time, however, now it is doing things at home.. The money I spend is to support that simpler life. I long consider any purchase, as in, do I really need it and is there a more economic way to get the task accomplished.. I mentally justify everything on "I'am getting ready for retirement" Oh! And there is ALWAYS the consideration for, will I need this post shtf..
Wow @duane I can't imagine all those changes your family went thru. On a more 'legalistic note' if you had stock before they changed the rules you are 'grandfathered' in. So thumb your noses at them. they can't make you give up what you already have typically it's called a 'legally nonconforming use' for zoning.
