What Do I Want My Life to Look Like?

So...just what is my ideal life?

I think I may have been one of the few people who actually LIKES meetings. In my old job world, I always looked forward to most of the meetings that filled up my calendar every day. It was a time to exchange ideas, talk over plans, debate different possible approaches and/or generate new ways of thinking and solving problems. In the best meetings I got to throw around some amusing anecdotes. A witty rejoinder or two.

In short, meetings fed the social beast in me.

But, now, those meetings are no more. I spent the first two months of my "Gap Year" riding solo across the country, so no meetings were going on during that time! Now that I've been home for about a month and trying hard to both minimalize my life AND, simultaneously, generate new income streams, I spend most of every day alone in my house either working at the computer or cleaning/organizing/selling. No meetings happening in my house either, so my former constantly-full world of meetings and social contact literally evaporated overnight.

And now I'm not only wondering whether or not I can't handle being alone most of every day in this fashion, I'm also wondering if I WANT to be alone most of every day in this fashion.

And, in the middle of the night last night, that question woke me up and kept me from going back to sleep for hours. And, in trying to answer it for myself, I began to see that the REAL question I needed to answer for myself is "what does my ideal life look like?"

Everything I've had in my mind thus far consists primarily of either 1) what I DON'T want to do (i.e., be tied down to a specific work location I have to be at physically all day every day, go back to a job in corporate America, etc.), or 2) a now-too-vague idea of what I would like to do (i.e., make money from writing in some way, or live a "flexible" life, etc.).

All of this thought and quandary came to me last night because I had read this article at RootsRated about something called "Dispersed Camping."

Hmmm...might this be what I want my life to look like?

Essentially, dispersed camping is when you camp at un-improved sites along the backroads of Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Forest, or Wildlife Refuge Area lands (or their state-run equivalents) FOR FREE. Yep. For free. And even though there are usually limits on how long you can stay there (a typical limit is no more than 14 days out of 30), those limits are plenty lax enough to, essentially, allow you to camp for free throughout the entire year if you are willing to drive around a bit.

So, theoretically, my only expenses under the "dispersed/free camping" model (if I choose that route) would be, roughly: health insurance, car insurance, gasoline for the car, maintenance on the car, car registration, cell phone bill (which would also perform as my major source of internet access), food and entertainment (e.g., Netflix account, some books for my Kindle, etc.). All that means it fits my new attempt to drastically lower my expenses.

But how lonely will it be? Can I manage that?

Not sure at all what the answer is to that.

Why Now?

Part IV

Financial Means
Ok, let me start by saying I am NOT wealthy. I've had some excellent jobs with great salaries, but I was also the sole wage earner for my first marriage of 24 years and raised four kids, and meeting ALL the needs of six people took all the money I could ever earn. I've also been divorced three times, have done my part to put four kids through college and have lived a lifestyle commensurate with making good money (eating out, new cars, big ol' house, etc.).

That said, by my calculations I have saved up enough over the last few years to last at least a year...as long as I downsize to having no debt at all. Thus, the following ideas/moves were born:

• Sold my Harley: one debt gone
• Selling my home: another, major, debt gone. To replace it, I am going to either build a Tiny House to replace it (currently trying to do that for $20k...we'll see!) OR buy a small travel trailer (around $10k).
• Selling my car: one debt gone as I plan to by a used truck capable of towing my Tiny House.
• Selling ALL my furniture: I won't be able to fit any of my current furniture in my Tiny House so it can go.
• Selling almost all my other household furnishings: Why would I need a patio table and chairs in a Tiny House? Or an air compressor?

My motto: Get Rid!

No human being has ever sat at this table for any reason. Is that not idiotic?

Now, admittedly, the scariest part now is the idea of using some of my "I could live for a year" cash reserves on a Tiny House and truck to pull it. My other option is to keep my current car, make the payments and just buy a small trailer. The benefit of that is that if I don't like this minimalist/downsized life, I've not put a ton of cash into it...just enough for the trailer. And, if I did decide to simply go back to a regular ol' life I could sell the trailer and probably not take too much of a loss.

So, readers, I'd love any opinions any of you have on THAT dilemma!

Why Now?

Part III

No commitment to job/career
In my "epilogue" post a month following the end of my bike journey across the country, I spoke to the idea of not being happy in my old working life and seeking a new one. That is the way I felt back in December, and that is still the way I feel about my old life now.

But let me tell you, it is a scary thing to not have steady, regular income arriving twice a month, no matter how much money I've saved up to help me with my transition. Now, don't get me wrong: no job anywhere, ever is "guaranteed." Market forces, the economy, whether or not a new boss arrives on the scene...all kinds of factors can mean the end of work that you may once have thought of as "going to be in this job until I retire." But, having a job in which the business is relatively established and which has been paying people just like you regular wages for months/years/decades is an extremely comforting situation.

And what I've consciously chosen is a severe degree of discomfort.

Waking up in the morning now is a LOT different than it used to be. Now, rather than know exactly what time I'll get into my office, exactly what meetings are on my schedule for the day, what work I need to get done for the day and roughly what I'm going to be doing that evening I get up and think:

OK...of all the many things I COULD be doing today, what is going to get me furthest towards my goals?

For the first time in my working life, no one but me is putting items on my calendar. No one but me really knows where I am or what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. And no one cares. No one is wondering "where is David?"

I think it should feel more exhilarating than it does. But, right now, it just feels really scary. There have been times of the last week where I'm really questioning whether or not I'm doing the right thing. There was a time this morning as I was out running errands at 11am (something I NEVER could have done in the past several decades because I'd have been at work) when I started to panic. Started to feel the heavy burden of swimming against the tide.

Then I saw this Hyundai coming at me down the street.

 

"Yes, Hyundai undoubtedly employees tens of thousands of employees just in the US alone, not to mention around the world. But, at some point, Mr. Hyundai was just like me: a guy, alone, trying his best to do something different than what he might have been used to. He probably had lots of panic moments too. But look at that car now: he made it through."

And so, today at least, I'm still going forward with the idea of trying to forge a new path for myself in which I don't go back to my old career path. All thanks to Mr. Hyundai.

So, while I don't have a commitment to a job/career, in the traditional sense, I DO have a commitment to a job...just one I'm making up for myself as I go along. But more about my attempts to create new income streams in an upcoming post :)