Bohemian... what a delicious word! "A socially unconventional person" It just brings to mind an older woman with long grey hair dressed in the traditionally Bohemian style of bright "gipsy colours with a big smile on her face because her life is filled with the peace and happiness of embracing the iridescence of natural beauty that surrounds us. I want to be her!
The key benefit to this ‘midlife crisis’/ epiphany that I have had is that I have reached a point where I really don’t care what people think of me and care even less about what they do with their lives. Don't get me wrong, I still have my moments where I slip back into Judge Judy mode but now I catch myself before I sprawl flat on my face and cover in mud the beauty that I was beginning to reveal. That's all it does really, makes you look and feel ugly and dirty. It's that old cliche of inner beauty that radiates through when you are at peace with yourself and others.
Sometimes you have to stop and think, "Am I getting angry with this person because they are acting or reacting differently to the way I would? I would never do or say that!" If you just let go of the judgement and step back and look at the way other people say or do things impassively you can let go of the hurt or anger. You have no control over what they say or do but you do have control over how you allow that to affect you.
There are moments or situations which, at the time, feel insurmountable, unfair! Why is this happening to me? I try so hard and yet never seem to catch a break! We spend our lives building the cages that trap us and then cry out in anguish and outrage because we feel trapped. We are mesmerised by the shiny ball that dangles before us, refracting light and all the happy thoughts of other people's lives who are living in the same prison. Society copes better when we are all following the crowd, towing the line. Don't think! Don't be different! It starts at the tender age of 3 when children are sent to preschool in a uniform, we all ooo and ahhh at how cute they look and don't give a second thought to the word "uniform", we are sending our children off to the gridlocked path that we were forced to travel.
You are "free to chose" when you are 18 but by then what choices are really ours? How much courage does it take to break the mould of living to work rather than working to live?
Unbecoming everything that isn't really you. How do we recognise what isn't really us? How do we stop and evaluate without being emotionally ensnared and invested? I think the biggest indicator that we aren't being true to ourselves is how we feel when carrying out our everyday tasks. Do you feel happy or fulfilled or proud? Yes, you may have to work to provide for your family but what are you providing? Wants or needs? It's in providing for wants that we build the walls of our prison stronger and higher.
We need to have a big spring clean, really be ruthless and go through everything we own. My rule is, if I can't pack up and move in one day then I have too much stuff! At the moment I have too much stuff! Alongside my personal and spiritual spring clean I'm having a physical one too. Get rid of all this extra "stuff" that weighs you down, more things to clean and maintain. There is nothing as eye opening as taking a box full of your belongings to a car boot sale and people haggling over paying you a pound for an item. How much time did you spend working to buy that item only for it to devalue to a pound or even less, a trip to the dump or the charity shop? Now every time I go to the shop and feel myself being lured onto the shiny disco ball dance floor I stop and ask myself, where will this item end? Has the time I have spent to acquire the money to buy it worth it?
Once you have stripped everything back to the bare bones of need you can reevaluate the amount of time you have to spend earning the money to provide for those needs. Can you simplify your work to be able to spend more time building the moments you will treasure at the end of your life rather than a bucket list of regrets? Have your eyes adjusted to the darkness?
This, however as most will know, is easier said than done. We are as addicted to material things as we are to sugar. We simply must have the next hit in order to maintain the happiness we derive from our material possessions. I have now stepped back and thought, right, what can you give me in return for my investment of my precious time? Our house, even though it has been a huge stress and commitment to purchase, is an investment that can offer us a good return one day, work for us as it were. During the evaluation process, we questioned whether it wouldn't be worth selling and buying a smaller house and getting rid of some of the debt hanging around our necks like an albatross. We need to be cautious however and not be too quick to take the path of least resistance.
Think outside the box, by creating a "granny flat" with excess space we can use it to generate income that will help pay off the mortgage. By using the spare room left behind by our oldest going off to university we can offer a room to a foster child, thereby killing 2 birds with one stone; a good deed that generates good karma and an additional income to help us work towards financial independence. If a foster child is too much commitment then there's always a foreign student. It suddenly struck me, as it does, at 1am in the morning that we are actually no longer really tied to this house and town. My eldest is off to uni and the other two boys are doing one year College courses, which can quite easily be done in any town. My daughter is home educated and my husband can work anywhere that he has internet access.
So why are we breaking our necks trying to figure out how to earn extra money to pay for this house when we can have the same size house for almost half the price?! It's an idea and work in progress of course but these things need to be considered in the quest for financial freedom
Do we need the tv? no, we have the internet, we can watch movies through sites that cost a lot less than the regular providers. I have also found that not being caught up in watching shows that have no real benefit to my life, I am now watching real life shows by real life people on YouTube who are living the kind of life I am striving towards. It helps keep me motivated and focussed. Start your own YouTube channel! It can be very uplifting to see your life looking more interesting from the outside than you imagine it to be! What is just your local neighbourhood is somewhere interesting and foreign to someone else!
I think the first time I really took in what was around me on a walk in the forest or at the beach, I realised that there is so much peace and happiness to be had simply by being outside and exploring. As children, this came naturally to us but slowly we were told that we needed to "get on with life", instead what we were doing was leaving life behind and getting on with living the life that society feels appropriate. Other people stuck in their prisons of materialism feel better looking out at neighbours who are in the same prisons rather than running free in a field breathing in the spring air or having a snowball fight.
We have a prideful attitude of knowing what is best for us. We chose to ignore the warnings of those on the path ahead of us, thinking, "that won't happen to me". Take stock right this moment! Are you living a life that brings you happiness and fulfilment in whatever form that takes for you? A lot of people who have vocational jobs do find their work very fulfilling and that is what we should be aiming for. If we don't have something that we find fulfilling that can earn us enough money to support our needs then there is a need to compromise but that needn't be a long-term compromise.
Once we have taken stock and remembered our dreams we can find ways of living them. Think outside the box! You were born with this wonderful ability and all the "dropouts" have given us wonderful inventions because they were able to maintain their ability to do just that. Don't be afraid of what other people think of you, they aren't going to take responsibility for your life at the end of it.
We need to try and find a balance between just throwing caution to the wind and taking risks that could put those who are dependent on us at risk and not putting our own lives on hold to provide for others. Children do not mean an end to your life, they can quite easily mould around the life you have chosen for yourself and you will be a much better role model to them showing them how to be happy rather than sacrificing your own happiness to provide for your perception of what theirs is. Above all else, they want to see you happy and they want to spend time with you. One or two weeks a year quality time on holiday doesn't make up for snapping at them on a day to day basis because you're so overwhelmed and resentful of what you are having to sacrifice for them the rest of the year. Take time daily or at the least weekly to do something fun together, even if that is just going for a walk in your local park, geocaching or if you're really desperate Pokemonning!
My father had the opportunity once to take on the job of a lighthouse keeper. I think this would have been really good for him as he was dealing with the unthinkable trauma of losing a wife to cancer. He didn't think that this would be a good life for me though as I would have had to go to boarding school and home education wasn't really widely practised then. In hindsight it would have been wonderful for me, I was just the right kind of child who would have embraced home ed and all that wonderful healing and quality time would have been invaluable to both of us. Ironically I have a bit of an obsession with lighthouses, they are so mysterious and strong and immovable. Have I fallen into the same trap of putting my own happiness on hold to provide a "stable" home for my children? Would they not have benefitted more from being taken along on the adventure I was embarked on when I was younger? I'm not apportioning blame, of course, we all have to accept responsibility for the steerage of our course, it's more of a sadness that I feel responsible for him making choices that sacrificed his own happiness. Does that not make me even more responsible now to make my life and that of my children a happy one? It's down to each one of us to determine exactly what that elusive "something" is but absolutely vital to the peace of our soul.
There is the joke that goes, "attention USS Gibraltar, you are currently on a collision course, please change your course."
"Attention unidentified party, we are set in our course, you need to change yours."
"This is a final warning, you need to change your course or you will be in a collision."
"We are not changing our course, you need to amend yours."
"Ok USS Gibraltar, suit yourself, this is the lighthouse keeper speaking"
It is our ego that keeps pushing us to "keep up with the Joneses". Healthy self-esteem stems from feeling happy and fulfilled in our lives and, from my experience of the world, this seldom comes from material things. We are happiest when we are out exploring and experiencing the world around us. That could be a day out or an extended trip around the world or even just your own country. Whatever you are able to work with given your ability to support yourself and your family on the go. Sometimes that means thinking outside the box or retraining yourself in some new skill. If you are working towards a goal of simplifying your life then it's like a light at the end of the tunnel when you are trapped in the darkness of "What am I doing this for?"
