10 ms·
I've sorta turned my back on the standard american dream. Racing to new areas of growth, working to build someone else's dream, getting paid well immediately fo
by lowglow 11y ago
I've sorta turned my back on the standard american dream. Racing to new areas of growth, working to build someone else's dream, getting paid well immediately for performance, paying high rent, etc to afford the image of success, and making friends that participate in this same high ambition culture. Instead of making markets, markets start making you. All the rules, and "norms" we've collected around ourselves to participate are just foolish.
I ended up just buying and crashing in a van, exiting that mode of being, and am much happier because of it. Now I get to save money, research and build what I want when I want, and generally am very much less stressed. I'm no longer beholden to a landlord, or feel like I must participate in activities that just serve to entertain but not enlighten. I can spend the day at the beach just reading if I wish.
You start to look at time as something that you can control again, and you start seeing how much life truly is a gift, and that life itself should be nurtured and cherished. There is also a sense of independence and DIY that comes along with the lifestyle that feels like I'm leveling up in good ways.
Will this mode change for me? Sure. Change is inevitable. But for now I've found more peace and focus than I have in a long time. I'm now able to concentrate on longer stretches of time that hold bigger ideas, and then asking myself how I might use that time to start refocusing my energy making new markets.
- seivan 11y agoHow does it work with having a companion. It might be easier to find someone with the same outlook. But if you're already in a relationship it's going to be an uphill battle.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI might be able to answer that. My wife and I are early 30s. I spent my 20s in the rat race, working 60-80 hour weeks for material possesions (nice vehicle, luxury townhouse, etc). At some point, I got tired of it and said, "Can we try something different?" I switched to a fully remote job. We disposed of the townhouse (no equity in it). We downsized our lives (1 car! I ride a bicycle everywhere! You would not imaging how much better shape I'm in) and began to live more frugally with a short-term plan of moving onto a sailboat and living on the ocean for a few years. We save 50%+ of my income (we live in a low cost of living area), we should be able to retire comfortably around age 45. We'll be moving onto our sailboat in the next few months, learning to sail together, and then starting a long circumnavigation around the world (~5 years). My wife didn't require any convincing. More quality time together for getting rid of things we shouldn't have cared about in the first place? It was an easy sell. If anything, she sold me. Rule 1: Pick the right partner.
- lowglow 11y agoBeautiful. You are an inspiration! :)
- toomuchtodo 11y agoThank you! But I can't take the credit. These other people I found organically online gave us the push we needed: http://www.thenomadtrip.com/ http://www.thenomadtrip.com/ http://fattygoodlander.com/ http://fattygoodlander.com/ http://www.sailingtotem.com/ http://www.sailingtotem.com/ I love technology. I love the work I do. But I will only live so long. Work to live, don't live to work. Make enough to live well enough to spend time living well. You won't lay on your death bed wishing you crammed a few more hours in at the computer. You will regret the extra hours you could've spent with those you care about.
- astrowilliam 11y agoYour last statement really hit a note with me. I've been spending my life chasing money and recently realized that I was just filling a hole. I have found someone that is willing to go adventuring with me. Screw the boring office worker life, it's time to start living. Good luck and have an incredible life!
- toomuchtodo 11y agoLife is short, I encourage you to live it to the fullest! (and it sounds like you are on your way!)
- astrowilliam 11y agoThanks, man! I can feel the positive changes happening already.
- intellegacy 11y agoalso see reddit.com/r/vandwellers
- kirykl 11y agoI was in a relationship and after my companion decided to end it, I found out it was to join someone living in a van. Don't be too quick to discount relationships with that lifestyle
- lowglow 11y agoYeah, it's all about them. If they're into it, awesome, but in my personal experience the people I dated were very much used to a standard of living, and had some expectations of my contributions to uphold an image. But this journey is ultimately up to you. You start out by asking yourself what do you truly find valuable? Are all of these things you've collected simply working together because in combination they've found some local maxima to sustain your current life? One thing I've found is that even if the people you knew before aren't available to make the transition, there are plenty people on the other side that will know you for who and what you are to them. Taking a stand and fighting for your change and growth takes some guts, and people find that admirable. Dating has also never been better because you both immediately enter into these relationships without pretense.
- timmaah 11y agoMy wife was into it 100%. We sold the big expensive house and moved into a 25' Airstream almost 4 years ago. I felt like I wasn't getting ahead. A bit stuck. I know she did as well. A bit different from the grandparent we still work a normal 40 hour week with normal (remote) jobs but have kind of checked out of the normal american dream. http://i.imgur.com/FQfQIlu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FQfQIlu.jpg That little dot in the middle is where we are spending this week. Middle of the Mojave Desert about 10 miles from any human.
- rpgmaker 11y agoWhere you already working the job and then talked management into letting you work remotely? Also, do you use some form of satellite comm service in order to get internet connectivity in remote areas? I'm interested in knowing how people go about getting these (apparently) high paying remote jobs...
- timmaah 11y agoMy job is mid web developer salary range. Currently on my second job since we went nomadic. This job was remote from the start though I am the only remote person at this company. Internet is all cellular connections. Verizon unlimited plan with AT&T on our phones as backup. We use a powered booster with an antenna on the roof. Interstate 40 is ~12 miles away from our current location, so the tower we are on was built to serve the highway.
- nether 11y agoThere was a guy on Reddit living in a van who answered this. He said the vast majority of women he met responded extremely negatively to his living situation.
- mpg33 11y agoMost millennials will end in the same boat.
- hippich 11y agocorrection - van :))
- taurath 11y agoThis is a big generational thing. My brother and I have been there as our parents moved us out to the country to buy a big house, my dad work his life away for a bigco only to be laid off 3 years before his retirement, and now they sit in their house with a lot of stuff and very few hobbies and not much of a social group. We've seen how far striving can take you, and the real cost of the sacrifices you make for possessions. Both of us orient ourselves towards experiences over possessions. He and his wife are joining the peace corps and I am working on my skillset to become a remote contractor so I can travel (while saving up as much as I can living with roommates).
- roymurdock 11y agoWell, they earned the financial stability to raise you and your brother and put you through school, which I'm they wouldn't consider a waste. It's a competitive world we live in, and I often feel like I'm wasting every minute that I'm not actively working towards learning something new/planning my next cool experience/my next job opportunity. I wonder when I'll have the time to settle down and raise a family. Hopefully we can let some of the hot air out of housing market to make starting a stable, nuclear family somewhat tenable again in the near future.
- taurath 11y agoThey put my brother through a bit of school - I left home at 18 on unamicable terms over my sexual orientation. Its a competitive world but spending every waking minute of your time on things that will give you resources will not give you the skillset needed to enjoy the resources you get. If you're trying to climb the socioeconomic ladder make sure you ask yourself whether its really worth it.
- superuser2 11y agoI'm not sure it's the "American Dream" you're arguing with. To my understanding that phrase specifically refers to owning a home in a suburb. It is formulated explicitly against having a landlord, living paycheck-to-paycheck, and living in an urban center.
- lawpoop 11y agoWhere do you park your van, and how often do you shower? Also, do you worry about your van being broken in to while you're not there?
- lowglow 11y agoI park it wherever, but mostly try to stick to cities where it's legal to sleep in your van. While I have parked in San Francisco, Redwood City, and San Jose, right now I'm crashing in and around Palo Alto, CA. I shower every morning at my local 24 hour super sport gym. I'm a sucker for hygiene. I don't really worry about my van being broken into because I think I tend to stay in low crime neighborhoods. I'm also not really attached to any material possessions contained within. Things come and go, no need to worry about them while they're here. I'm writing a tongue-in-cheek book about the van life experience tentatively called "Tech Bubble Burst: A survival guide to living in and out of your van." It's been a blast of experience so far. :)
- wrong_variable 11y agoI would pay money to read this amazing book !
- marincounty 11y agoI think you should write a book, but don't go through the vanity press ripoff. Publish it yourself. I have known people who live out of a van/truck camper until cops realize what's going on. They will harass you to no end. The tickets are expensive. The days of " Just move on." are over. That said, in most counties, there is nowhere to park a vechicle overnight. We need to desiginate areas, in commercial areas, where people can legally sleep. They have pretty much made it illegial to sleep Anywhere, without paying. Even Parks have time restrictions. I'm ashamed of what America has become. If Jesus Christ reappeared, he would be hit with multiple municipal fines within a few days. It's just not right. (If I seem mad-- I am. I had a friend who tried to live in the back of his truck, and take showers at a local gym. Cops harassed him nightly. Once the gym found out he was just using the showers--they made his life difficult. The one slime ball manager would time his workouts in order to use the facilities. Wonderful world we've got? Oh--yea, he was doing non-union construction. The last thing he wanted to do was workout at 6:30 a.m. in order to take a shower.)
- batbomb 11y agoIt doesn't really sound like you've turned your back on the American dream, as low crime neighborhoods are highly correlated with home ownership. Or, put more bluntly, your living scenario is highly correlated with low crime, home ownership, and the "standard american dream".
- dcw303 11y agoAustralia has cloned the great American dream as well. When I lived in Sydney, real estate was all anybody ever talked about. Are you renting? Oh, too bad. Got to get on the property ladder, y'know. Yeah, my commute's about an hour and a half, if there's no trouble on the M5. I toughed it out on an oppressive mortage for thirty years out in the sticks, why can't you? Kids these days want it all. etc, etc. Coming to Tokyo was great. Sure, people still ask where you live, but the proximity to the train station is more important than how many bedrooms/entertainment centers are in your McMansion. The only time I've been asked if I own or rent is when relatives came to stay. I don't know if it's the after effect of the property bubble bursting, because the cheap construction materials means housing stock is not built to last, because good inner city locations are still too expensive to buy (despite said bubble bursting) so everyone rents, or just a culture that does not place much social cachet on property ownership. But it suits me.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- honksillet 11y agoIf that is what makes you happy, then more power to you. The real question is was the American dream really open to you? Was this life choice made easier because what was the american dream has been so diluted as to make it unpalatable? Is the current craze in tiny homes because people really like tiny home or because it is the only realistic option for a lot of the enthusiasts. For some people the former is true. Other are at least in part rationalizing their belief ex post facto.
- dota_fanatic 11y agoI can't help but wonder: what proportion of the population has a place that they can truly, and with love, call home? Somewhere they feel alive in, and grow in, and feel confident raising a family in. Somewhere that persists. How about 30 years ago? 2000 years ago? 20,000 years ago? I think the visualization of this data would be very interesting indeed, albeit impossible to create. It's my impression that it gets harder and harder to create a place called home for the average person, as wages go down, available jobs are more competitively sought after (especially the ones where you feel like a human doing humane things from day to day), and real estate & rent around urban centers goes up. Count your blessings if your field of work is amenable to being done remotely, and start building out the skills, habits, and resources needed that go along with it asap.
- Ntrails 11y agoAbout 5 months ago my mother sold a house that was built by my Grandmother in the 50's. That had been my home for 12 years or so and I'd been going to for as long as I'd been alive. I love that house, the garden, the sense of belonging. But it was expensive to run and mum could not afford to keep it (and I am not successful enough to make that go away alas). That place was home in a deep and meaningful sense. Do you know what I realised when I drove home on a weekend to a new house with no history, no lore, no memories? Home is where mum is. Of course I also have a home in London which is rented and changes all the time and that, too, is home. I don't need to own a place for it to be home. I don't have to be there or have been there for years. I just have to go home and feel good about the space which is mine and filled with my people (and my things). I guess I just disagree with the premise that there is a need for what you describe. It's something people are taught they need in some cultures.
- grecy 11y agoI'm very similar. I wound up spending two years driving from Alaska to Argentina [1], and now I'm setting off to spend two years driving around the perimeter of Africa. I strongly believe time is much more important than money, and I'm very careful about how much money (time) I spend on "things". [1] http://theroadchoseme.com http://theroadchoseme.com is my blog of the trip(s)
- SeanDav 11y agoDriving around Africa should be considered carefully and researched even more carefully. There are very real dangers and complete no-go areas. Good luck out there!
- grecy 11y agoAbsolutely, I've been planning for years, and I'm in contact with multiple people doing my same route right now. They're having the time of their lives.