My upcoming birthday will be my final birthday in my 40s. Reflecting on the past almost nine years, I think this decade’s theme will be simplicity.
I’m unsure when it happened, but something in my brain switched, and I started thinking I wanted to live a simple life. When my car died, I let it go and figured out a way to get where I needed to be without a car payment and monthly insurance to pay anymore.
When COVID-19 hit, and I was laid off from my contract position, I knew that I could earn more money going back and working for an established company or a bigger non-profit, but after over ten years of working on my own, I knew that I didn’t want to work anywhere there was a risk of being micromanaged or getting involved in company politics, so I started to look for freelance work.
Have the choices I’ve made come without any complications? Absolutely not. If I didn’t choose to make the move to freelance, our move last year wouldn’t have been possible.
Right now, I’m living the most uncomplicated life for me. Simplicity doesn’t mean going without; it means understanding the difference between wants and needs, in my opinion.
Did I want a car? Sure, why wouldn’t I want to have the convenience of being able to go where I want, when I want? The truth is that I’m not that social, and I wasn’t working five days a week by that point, so I was willing to do without and use a ride-share when I needed to get somewhere.
Sometimes, I’m asked if I wouldn’t want X, Y or Z in my life, and the majority of the time, my response is that adding X, Y or Z to my life would also add complications that I’m not willing to take on consciously.
Maybe things will change in the future, but for now, I’m quite comfortable living a simple life, with a bull and some goats as my neighbours. 😉