Episode 58: Have Less, Live More

“I believe a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows us to produce and consume.” Ivan Illich The lessons I learned in AfterLIFE weren’t intentionally meant to be about minimalism, but stumbled into what many would call that. I don’t like that or the notion of “downsizing” because they imply only doing without and ignore what one is gaining. Conserving the resources of time and money by “minimalizing” offers the freedom to use that time and money in more life enhancing ways. After my divorce, I simply had fewer things, a smaller home, and no yard. My first impulse was to work hard to replace all those things, but then I saw I had less things…but more time. More space for living, learning, growing, creating, and experiencing. As a father, I could say “yes, I do have time to play” instead of “no, we have to do yard work this weekend”. I haven’t mowed, raked, weeded or any of those, for me, mind numbing wastes of life in 11 years and haven’t missed them one time. If you have a home and enjoy those things then you are living your life as you wish and good for you! But, most people I’ve met do those things because they think they have to. I’ve saved thousands of hours of life, and tens of thousands of dollars by “minimalizing” and “downsizing”. I did something that implied doing without or having less, but I used the freed up time and resources to have a life time of adventures, learn new skills, and build financial security for myself. Less consumption has lead to more time, freedom, and joy. Less stress and anxiety, and less waste of life. My time in the COVID lockdown reinforced this again. Suddenly there we 500 hours of time freed up by things I couldn’t do and things I didn’t have to do. I used that time to finish and publish my book, launch a podcast, structure a deal to sell my financial planning practice and being a new chapter in life, and dive into some therapy to work through some shadows that the pandemic stirred up. Instead of focusing on the things I couldn’t do, I dove into things I could do with all the found time. (IMPORTANT NOTE: I want to acknowledge what a privilege it was that I had a profession that allowed me to keep working safely at home. I know millions couldn’t do that.)  Read More --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/carlopodcast/support