Yesterday, October 21st, was our One Year
Anniversary.
We have been living in this little cabin in the woods …
something that we call our camping cabin
on steroids … for a year.
I think, if we had to choose one word to describe where we
are in our acclimation to small cabin life, it would be … FREEDOM!
Long we have sought it. Every small enticing taste of it,
every faint whiff of its fragrant aroma, spurred us on in our quest for greater
personal levels of it.
It cost us quite a lot to get to where we are.
Not so much in the financial department. Everything costs.
There is no getting around the reality of this issue. It did take some dollars
to get settled into this lifestyle mode. Not too many dollars though and we
were able to get to this point without incurring MORE DEBT!!! Incurring more debt would have only served to keep us
bound to the endless going nowhere motion
of the hamster wheel.
The best thing to do with debt is to get out of it by whatever means is necessary and, once out of it, STAY OUT OF IT!
Pay it off and get out from under it. Sell it off and get
out from under it. Throw in the towel. Declare bankruptcy and get out from under it. Do what you’ve
got to do to get out from under it and start over fresh.
Make your plan. Work your plan. Stay focused on your plan. A
lot of seemingly impossible plans can become reality over the course of 5
years.
It cost us, more so, in the what people think department.
It’s kind of a bizarre thing. You’d think that long-time
friends and acquaintances would be encouraging and cheer you on. Forget that
notion. Pitifully few of them will give you a thumb up in support. Most of them
will, in fact, do what they can to dissuade you. And, when not dissuaded by
their well-intentioned negativity, most of these well-intentioned friends and
acquaintances will treat you as if you’ve contracted leprosy.
There are social and psychological reasons for their
dissuasion and response to our staunch stand. I think … and this “I think” is
based on my own college centered studies in sociology and psychology coupled
with a generous number of years of behavioral observation … those doing the
dissuading are not so much concerned about your welfare and happiness … they
are experiencing forms of abandonment, rejection,
and sometimes jealousy.
They simply can’t handle the fact that they are being left
behind.
Rather than face their own interior inadequacies, they cloak their
inadequacies in garments of pseudo-altruism.
Those that cloak their interior inadequacies in garments of religious pseudo-altruism are the worst
of the lot.
Freedom.
Now that’s an interesting word.
It’s a difficult word to wrap our minds around.
Especially
in our modern culture where our freedom
to choose, more often than not, harnesses us more tightly to the wagon that
is set upon by the lenders, purveyors, and the politics of modern social
planners. According to the standards set by the aforementioned, our personal success is then measured by what we
accumulate, how much we accumulate, the size and brand of what we accumulate,
and the amount of debt we can carry without going bankrupt.
Our chosen lifestyle suites us quite well, looks good on us, and we consider that we
have discovered a lifestyle of living
large! We now have time to focus on and do the things that are important to us in life.
Doing the difficult work to get to this small space that affords us generous volumes of freedom …
this place where we have
walked away from the stress and strain of mortgaged
life …
this place where we have ceased feeling obligated to keep plugging along at jobs until we are too old to
enjoy a retirement life …
has been well worth the effort.
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