Essential or dispensable?
I could make this work. (Image by Peggychoucair)
For probably the first time ever, I live in a house I can afford.
This choice has positively affected every aspect of my life. I never realized how much I was working just to keep up with housing costs. Scaling down has allowed me to take more risks and have more freedom. I will never go back.
Of course, if you had asked me to make such a change a few years ago, I would have resisted. I wouldn’t have seen how it was possible. The future I would have imagined for myself even if I were able to downsize would have been a lesser one. I still had a set of assumptions that I was unable to question.
This is how it often goes when it comes to change. We want something different for ourselves, but we aren’t willing to give up on what we already have in order to get it. In other words, we don’t actually want to change. We stay locked into habits and mindsets that keep us exactly where we are, protecting our lives from disruption, even when we are longing for that disruption.
Our situation is like a plant with an extensive root system beneath the surface. When you start yanking on one node of the system, it won’t budge because it’s connected to all the others. We will have to dig the whole thing out if we want one part of it gone. In order to get what we truly want, we may have to make deeper changes that force us out of our habits and assumptions.
When it came to my housing situation, I assumed that to find less expensive housing I would have to have an even longer commute or choose a home with less desirable characteristics (for instance, something with a lot of traffic noise or an awkward floor plan).
To solve the problem, I started working remotely and moved away from the major city where we’d been living to a teeny-tiny one. Now, no commute — and not much traffic noise, either.
Not everyone wants to blow up their life, and I’m not saying that’s necessary. But many of us can get pretty good at rationalizing why everything needs to stay exactly the same, and it’s just not true. I know that because the pandemic changed everything, and we all made it work because we had to. So really, nothing has to stay the same. We have a lot more choices than we think we do. And certain choices, when we are willing to make them, have the power to unlock more possibilities than we could have imagined.
We might be carrying stories about how much money we need, what we deserve, or what other people need from us. What other people will think, what could go wrong, or what we’re capable of. All of these stories can be reconsidered and reimagined. It’s hard work to do it yourself, proactively, and it’s even more painful when it’s done to you (for instance, when you get laid off from the job you have been meaning to leave for years). The more we can get in touch with what we really want and be open to unexpected or unconventional ways of attaining it, the easier it becomes to see what isn’t there and disrupt our old patterns. We’ll be happier and more resilient.
As a result of living in a smaller, less expensive house, my life has improved in every way. This has made me ask myself what else I’m clinging to that I believe is essential, but may also be unnecessary and potentially at odds with what I want. What comes up for you?
