A few rude wake up calls have recently come our way. One of Princess Muffins’ co-workers died in her sleep in her late 50’s. It forced us to think: we’re not too far away from that. She didn’t have time to “retire”, and spent the last of her time working her miserable job. Our life goals have since shifted toward actually LIVING life, rather than spending said lives in analysis paralysis, planning and planning, waiting to die or retire, whichever comes first. Part of this living of life involves strategic use of various resources at our disposal while we’re “working” in order to have a far more pleasant existence. Historically, this has meant spending some quality time as a long weekend here or there, and creating an enterprise out of blogging about our travels and efforts to live a higher quality life while still somewhat working as “wage slaves”.
Minimalism is not that you should own nothing… but that nothing should own you.
In order to free myself from wage slavery, either I needed to become incredibly rich with passive revenue streams out the wazoo from God-only-knows-where, or I need to start cutting back. Of course, I did what every red-blooded American is conditioned to do… try to become incredibly rich with passive income streams, of course! I’m sure I’ll get into the details of all that madness at some point or another. However, suffice it to say, that’s not where I ended up.
My lessons from this path substantially reinforced Ludwig Mies van der Rohe‘s well-worn quote, “Less Is More”. Everything I own seems to end up owning me. The big house needs dusting. The lawn needs to be mowed and patched up. The lawn mower needs a tune-up. And the list just goes on and on. Where does the time go? It goes to taking care of the accumulated “trophies” of material gain. More time comes from less “stuff”
Work Smarter, Not Harder
In order to make do in my life, rather than make doo (💩) of my life, I needed to understand how to work smarter, not harder. Not in the general sense, mind you – that seemed obvious. But, how does someone live a simpler life? What do they do? How do they live? What fills their days?
So I began to research my buns off. I started looking into all sorts of ways that would allow me to jettison my existence of excess, my life of luxury, and finally face frugality. These were only a few of the method of frugal living I looked into as a means of escaping the rat race:
Retiring to Costa Rica/Mexico
Extreme Couponing
Minimalism
Tiny House Living
Self-Sufficient Living (backyard farming/solar power)
Van Life
Each one of these investigations yielded a unique world of interesting tools, techniques and tips. The attempts at mastery of these skills combined have shaped my concept of a meaningful and interesting existence. Not one of them is right or wrong, in and of themselves, but each must be approached and implemented in moderation.
One of my key aspirations is to express my creativity through capturing the beauty of nature through photography and videography. All of the photos on this site were taken by me, The Happy Camper.
Anonymity
Because my wife and I still work for our wage slave masters, while I viciously attack the concept of such servitude in this medium, I will use a pen name and refrain from being directly visible in any of the photos or videos. This is because “the man” isn’t terribly interested in having people work for them who aren’t in it for the “long haul.” Just as companies can fire someone when it’s right for them, I reserve the right to quit my job when it’s right for me, and would prefer not to gain any unwanted attention from the overlords until then.
You can help me achieve my dream purchasing any products you would normally buy from Amazon using my affiliate link. The Amazon Affiliate program allows content producers (like me) to earn a small commission for any customers referred to Amazon. The cool thing is that the customers don’t pay any more for their purchases than they normally would. This allows viewers and readers to help support content creators without incurring any extra expense.
Thank you for your support of my happy! Any money that I earn from these ads, whether from advertising or Amazon Affiliate sales, allows me to focus more on creating content and take my steps to escape from wage slavery.
