Would You "Give It All Up"?

Many people all around the globe are taking and making the shift to lower paying more sustainable lifestyles. Could you make the switch?

It gives me great joy to hear of people "giving it all up" to pursue a simpler way of life. A life of lower consumption and lower income, leaving their often higher paying jobs and comfortable lifestyles to live in a smaller home and have a part time or lower income more environmentally sustainable job. Even to the confusion and shock of their friends and families who cant comprehend like many, why you would want to 'down grade' your lifestyle. But as a matter of fact, these changes can (and are the reason why many make the switch) be very rewarding. Leaving a fast paced, stressful life, leaves room for family, friends, health and re-connecting with the environment around you.
It can be compared to retirement, when a couple may wish to stop working and downsize their house, and get back to each other and enjoying life. But why wait till you are 60 to enjoy all their is to enjoy in life, why not start now.
It somewhat ironic that we are brought up to believe that in order to be happy we must first be stressed and over worked, we start out as kids perfectly happy and content then we are told its time to grow up, we have to go to school, where we are stressed about homework because we are told that it will give you a good life later, then we are told to go to uni because its how we get a job, so in uni we are stressed with more work, because we are striving for this ultimate job, then we get the job and we are stressed because we work so hard to get a promotion because we are told the more money you have the happier you will be, we take on a big mortgage for a big house, because we are told that the bigger the house the happier you will be and so the stress of paying the mortgage makes us work more and its one big vicious cycle. *phew*

But what if we changed this around? I have been inspired this week by reading a book called 'Into the Wild' by Jon Krakauer. The book follows the short life of a boy not much older than me who finishes university and sets out on a life of subsistence, and tramping (hitch-hiking) across America to reach his goal of exploring the Alaskan wilderness. I find myself relating to Alex (the boy) and I see many similarities with myself. He is friendly, intelligent and could have the grand American Dream that his parents dream for him, but he sees past the illusion and goes in search of real experience and the real meaning of what it is to be human.

I know that structure and organisation, hard work and stress is what holds our society together. Growing populations need to be supported, and nobody can afford to 'slack off', but I feel that if we take the meaning of life to be live to work instead of work to live what are we really taking away at the end of it. Remembering that we cant take money with us when we die, and we cant eat it either, our pursuit of money as wealth instead of experience as wealth is our greatest downfall.

I hope that in reading this blog you will find some time to reflect on what you want out of your short time on earth and to ask yourself; If I look backthe real beauty of the world, or do I want to spend every day embracing what it means to be alive.

 on my life before I die, what will I want to see and what do I want to have achieved? Do I want to wait till I'm 60 to experience
I will finish by going back to my main point of 'giving it all up', if you were to take what you needed to survive and only to survive from your home today, what percentage of your household belongings would you actually need to take with you, then ask yourself, how would I feel if I emptied my house, and kept only that which enhanced my every day life. What would you keep? How much would you get rid of? Would you ever consider making the change? or to what extent?
Let me know with a comment.

Have a wonderful day
Em