When I started attaching my value to the amount of time and effort I was devoting to things that had a monetary return like work and material possessions (extrinsic) over things that enriched my life for less exertion like time spent with my wife or walks with my dog(intrinsic), I knew I had made a wrong turn. Which is fine sometimes, when you can acknowledge it and correct your course. My situation, however, was one misstep after another. I was getting bombarded with stressors popping up that normally, one at a time, would feel doable but at this rate, I was sinking fast. So I had to do a major inventory check on what I had going for me and what I felt the major setbacks were.
Initially, this was a complete energetic overhaul and I burnt out almost immediately. I had hit a major roadblock and felt I was out of options with the final step being to throw in the cards at work. My wife and I felt we needed to locate a new place with a change of scenery to freshen up our surroundings in hopes of that having an effect on what caused all our problems as if they were dependent on our physical location. This turned out to be a total waste of time and now we are out of our apartment by month's end. Soon after we realized the housing situation in Portland is increasingly tightening its grip on the lower income population. Inventory check; Apartment- 0. So we scramble to downsize everything we own to the bare necessities somehow blaming the massive collection of stuff and things for all the stress we feel. This again was an emotionally draining roller coaster filled with contemplation over old movie tickets and ragged t-shirts with hoarder like tendencies. (40% of Americans exhibit hoarder-like tendencies). So now we are fully depleted of will power with no place to live next lined up.
So now what? We still feel like we are at our wit's end. What other crazy trends can we try if minimalism didn't cure our discontent? Van life?... But we drive a 2018 CR-V. How does #crvlife resonate with the millennial crowd? (I can say that I was born in 1993)
My newly married wife felt this was the worst possible option. But after marrying me she felt brave enough to do it.
The appeal of rent-free living was enticing and we had nothing to lose. We still kept our day jobs (teacher for me and nanny for her) and so the freed up income was nice finally being able to splurge on dinners out--something we rarely did-- as well as going the most drastic minimalist route with only the essentials we had acquired over the past year. We went to the gym daily in exchange for showers. The showers were nice but with all the extra time on your hands with nowhere to go, a routine was welcomed. The change of scenery turned into nightly stays in church parking lots, vacant lot curbsides, friends garages, and an occasional hotel when we felt the need to escape the exposure of constantly being in public. Our dog seemed to have enjoyed this venture most of all with the more frequent visits to dog parks and doggy daycares. However for us the buzz wore off extremely fast once we realized that all the things we were no longer paying for ended up getting equalized by daycare fees, laundromat costs, eating out almost daily, hotels, a storage unit, gym membership, an absurd amount of gas from driving around, basically we traded in one big expense for various smaller ones.
So what did we learn?
Getting rid of stuff doesn't automatically grant you serenity.
Mobile dwelling has its trade-offs that are seriously worth considering.
Trends like #vanlife and #minimalism are the kinds of things that unless you experience them for yourself you just really can't assume they're for you just by watching a few videos or scrolling by photos.
Ultimately, we tested the trial by fire approach to downsizing and reevaluating our relationship with our possessions. Then if that wasn't enough we got out of the shackles of a monthly rent payment only to discover that maybe the issue was in us. We just weren't up for the everyday monotony of work, cook, binge, repeat. And we didn't have to go this route to figure that out... or maybe we did. Either way, this experience gave us a new perspective on what processes are running in the background of most 20 somethings trying to chase the dream that was implanted from generations before us.
Yes, we could have saved enough money to travel for a year and not need to work. But even then it requires maximum effort at times. We also could have just stayed at home and kept talking about it until the day came where we felt "ready" but who's to say that day would ever come as long as you're in your comfy IKEA chair making small talk like "someday" that is never today and "we should" instead of "we did" . Eventually, the discomfort of uncertainty settles in and the only difference is how you respond, with resistance or with openness. And with this, you create a more than normal experience and that makes you supernormal.