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Living Life

• January 2016
• Hi Steph Simple Living

Steph (If I may),
You had me at ‘dirt bag’! (Let me apologize in advance–my emails are sometimes a little verbose.) I’m in my mid 30’s, working on a PhD, have the typical 9-5 job, and come home to a house that I spend very little time in. I swim, cycle, run and preach the plant-based lifestyle in my spare time. This past year I’ve felt a deep desire to let go of all that’s comfortable, structured, calculated and typical of our society’s status quo. I see more value in ‘living’ life, then in trying to chase after things that just don’t feed my soul. Trying to parlay what feeds my soul into a livable life is the least of my questions. My question: Am I being irresponsible? Is tossing out everything that’s certain sane?
Joel

Hi Joel,
I don’t know!
Just kidding.
Not really.
🙂
I go back and forth on all these questions too. So far what I’ve noticed is: usually if what you’re doing doesn’t feel right, eventually you’re going to change it. Hopefully that takes the pressure off of feeling like you’re making a big decision at one certain moment–you’ve probably been making lots of little decisions for a while now, and eventually they are going to lead you to where you’d like to be.

I’ve also noticed that things change pretty fast regardless of who decided (you versus not-you). And I’ve also noticed that we have a tendency to either stick around for much longer than one would have expected, or else be gone extremely unexpectedly. Either way, being happy seems to be the only thing that really matters. If you’ve figured out what makes you happy right now, you’re way ahead.

Tossing everything out is good every once in a while, especially if you’re the one who decides when it’s time for tossing.

And if you don’t like your house and you never live in it, seems like there might be a better allocation of resources.

Another thing I’ve noticed is nothing is certain, so it may not even be a question of tossing it, rather just doing something else uncertain for a while, and then doing something else uncertain later, and etc.

Thank you for writing to me,
Steph