It has been a long political season, I have spent much of my time lately reading, thinking about, and writing about world news and politics. Forgetting where my original intentions were, and that is philosophical, spiritual, societal and cultural matters. As well as politics and current events, but balancing the ratio is necessary. So ...
10 Steps to Simplify Your Life
1) Relationships: Sort through all the relationships you are part of, and weed out the good from the bad. Only in this is there the possibility to gain fresh new outlooks on the world and on other people.
2)Possessions: You are not your possessions, you are not your friends and family, you are not your awards and degrees. You are matter made conscious. You are a physical object with the ability to think!
3) Money:
Money is important, we need to earn it, we need to spend it, but it should not be the all encompassing reason for our lives. We should not spend our entire life in the constant pursuit of it thinking that it will solve our problems. Lastly we should not waste the money we do have!
4) Work:
Relax, kick back and enjoy the world around you. Money isn't needed to do something that simple, so working your life away is just silly. Don't let your job determine how your life is run, find a job based on your life style!
5) Religion:
Take aspects of all great world religions and philosophies and create your own religion. Pagan, Abrahamic, Dharmic, Modern all of these types of religions make incredible points and give great advice. Many of them have done great things for the world. But how can any single one of them have it right over the rest of them?
6) Food & Drink:
We not only have over done the amount of food we eat, but also the type. We eat processed and chemically enhanced foods. As well as horribly mistreated and genetically mutated meats. We depend on a 15 year old high school student to cook us our "number 1 with coke". What ever happened to cooking your own food, using ingredients that are good for you or at the very least going out to a nice restaurant?
7) Housing:
One of the most, if not the most expensive bills all of us have is paying for rent, the mortgage, utilities, property tax, or whatever other housing related bills some people may have found themselves paying for. I am not going to pretend to know how it feels to have to pay a mortgage, the longest I ever went paying rent was for 10 months, the rest of my life I have lived with one parent or the other. So besides the meager $50 a week I am asked for I do not have housing expenses right now.
However that does not mean I don't have a fully detailed and well planned out method of living for near free after moving away from home.
First off there is the incredibly simple, somewhat uncomfortable, but not all that uncommon, living in your vehicle option. Sure, sure most people you hear of that live in their vehicle are destitute, homeless, and not very socially accepted. But does that mean it isn't feasible for a decent human being to make a conscious decision to live in their vehicle? Of course not! Since last August I have been living in my 1979 VW Bus. It was parked outside my dads house in PA from August to March and now my moms house in LI from March to the present. I like to think of it as my bedroom, since neither of my parents actually have a room for me anymore since we left our house in Sayville over a year ago. I could have pushed for a two bedroom apartment, or made my dad set something up in the basement, but I didn't want that, I truly wanted to use my bus as my "home".
I am incredibly lucky to have a vehicle with two beds, a sink a stove and a fridge. Most people don't have these amenities in their car. But my point is if you are looking for a cheap way to live, investing in an RV or a camper, might be a viable source for a few months. Park at camp grounds, Walmarts, truck stops, beaches, almost anywhere. It is a very serene way to live, having a different front porch every morning.
Another incredibly out there idea is to buy land for cheap and build your own log cabin. This is an art form and life skill that has almost faded from society. How rewarding would it feel to build your own home, to your own specifications, with your own two hands? I know to me that would be incredible. Land down south can be purchased on the cheap, then the woods on your land would supply the resources, and you and some friends or family can do the work for free. Just an idea.
You can get a job that houses you, like state parks, camps, ski resorts, etc. If you live alone and don't have much stuff you can rent a room from someone instead of an entire studio apartment. You can couch surf, stay at a hostel, work on a farm,
hell I know someone in college who lived in a tent in the woods on campus. There are SO many ways to live, be comfortable, spend very little, and still be part of society.
The kid from collage lived in the woods, but when he was on campus he was just like anyone else. I live in my car but no one at work could or would ever assume I was a bum, considering I am *at work*. Where you sleep, is just that where you sleep. It does not portray your worldly status your societal standings, or your mental capacity. I am nearly a genius, have more money than most of my friends, and am very social and outgoing. I choose to live in my car because it is an awesome experience, life lesson, story, and is only temporary. I knew the first night I slept in the bus that a year from than I would be in a cabin on the top of a mountain or on a cruise ship on it's way to the Bahamas, or in Japan sleeping in a dorm room, or hell maybe I'd be in a coffin sleeping with the worms. Who the fuck knows, but I knew my life wasn't meaningless or less worthy than anyone else because of where I chose to lie my head.
Sorry for the little rant there, but it is a big peeve of mine that people are so far removed from the days when we lived in caves or straw huts. There are still people on this planet who do live in caves and huts. We in America pride ourselves on the fact that we have civilized ourselves further than these neanderthals. But the fact is, just because we don't sleep on the ground anymore doesn't mean we have to pay extravagant amounts of cash for unnecessarily comfortable and large houses.
Living for cheap doesn't only mean the price of the actual home though. It also includes the cost of powering and repairing that home. The obvious solution to high power costs is to invest in solar and wind. A $3000 wind turbine could power your whole house, that's $3000 once and then no power bill's ever again. Solar panels would do the same trick. Not to mention if you're still hooked up to the power lines you can sell excess energy back to the company, finally make money from the bastards that have been making money off of you for years.
These are just a few idea's, they are my idea's but my main concern is that you come up with your own ideas. Rethink the amount of money you are spending on your living situation and find ways to cut down on it. Reevaluate your life style and you'd be surprised how much money and stress you can save yourself when not having to deal with excessive demands on housing accommodations. I am a little extreme myself with the vehicle and cabin thing, not many people would go that far. But moving in to a smaller home, watching your electricity usage, subleasing, building a basement apartment for renters, property flipping, and so many other common things can help ease your housing situations. Just put some time and thought in to it.
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