I have been afforded the privilege of waking up without an alarm clock, something most people can only dream of. On beautiful, sunny summer mornings I wake up anywhere between 9am and noon and I go for a walk. I enjoy each and every day.
When I work, it doesn’t feel like work. It’s not work. It’s me sitting down at a computer and doing the things I love to do anyway: coding, designing, writing. I can quit working on any particular thing at any given time. I have no bosses and no hard deadlines, and yet I still have money to pay the bills and money to indulge myself in books and software.
I’m living in near absolute freedom.
The Accidental Minimalist
Everyone has heard the saying (or some variation of it) that goes like this:
“You can’t have what you want. You should want what you have.”
And I’m in a position of wanting what I have. I’m what you might call an Accidental Minimalist. I didn’t make a huge spectacle out of owning less. I didn’t turn it into a blog post and shout it from the mountain or proselytize the minimalist gospel to the lost lifestyle designing sinners. I didn’t even know it was a big deal.
I had and have less because I get less. I was broke for most of my life and now I have enough. The end. I was a minimalist out of necessity and that’s carried over even into what I consider to be the most financially successful period in my life thus far.
When you don’t have many things to begin with, minimalism is more of a habit than a trendy label or some spectacular anti-consumerist movement.
The Internet Lifestyle
People have crazy ideas about what it means to work on the internet. It’s the same kind of ideas that they have about millionaires. People too often equate wealth with freedom, but that really isn’t the case. I’m a bit of an essentialist myself, so let me put it this way: the freedom you want comes from spending money on only the things you absolutely need with very few indulgences.
You don’t want the money. You want the freedom you think the money provides, but the truth is if you can’t find that freedom in yourself using whatever money you are getting now, if you can’t pull it together in your present circumstances then adding money to the equation will only make you worse off.
Making money on the internet won’t free you. Only restraint and a bit of frugality can do that.
Photo by lrargerich
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- Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: The Truth About Working For Yourself
- The Beginner’s Guide to Lifestyle Design
- Five Things Lifestyle Designers Should Be Thankful For Today
- Lifestyle Design is Still Alive
I am glad you at the point where you are having some success. Not having a boss to provide you with direction can be tricky at times.
This site is looking better every time I visit it – keep living the dream JD.
Thanks, man. I was really glad to make the site more minimalist and print-like. I think I’ll be sticking with this design for quite some time.
“You don’t want the money. You want the freedom you think the money provides, but the truth is if you can’t find that freedom in yourself using whatever money you are getting now, if you can’t pull it together in your present circumstances then adding money to the equation will only make you worse off.”
I think money is viewed as much more than freedom. It is viewed as security, success, status and on and on. These are the times we are living in, and in some ways it’s unfortunate that so much of our happiness is tied into financial well-being.
Financial freedom is a wonderful thing, but if it is pursued in the hopes that all of a sudden health, happiness and overall well being are waiting for us at the gates of wealth, we will be in for a surprise.
~Mike
I am actively taking the steps to generate an income online, but inside myself, I already feel just like you said,
.-= Mike Roberts´s last blog ..Elvia Rhodes: Big Goal Hunter =-.
Yeah, financial freedom is certainly a worthy goal, but too many people assume that it’s the antidote when it’s really just a band aid. Getting money without the write attitude about money can screw people up even more. The change needs to happen from the bottom up and the inside out.
I don’t consider myself a minimalist but I can sure go without having clutter. If things are collecting dust sell it and use it as start up funding. If I had to sell everything I had I would just need my laptop and a few pairs of clothing — and I would be good to go!
.-= Tony Ruiz´s last blog ..Invest in Yourself =-.
I feel the same way, although I do appreciate books. I really like typography and printing in general. Some kind of crazy passion of mine. I created a list a while back and I own somewhere around 100 things. It’s not something I did intentionally either. It’s just the way it is. Where I really go crazy is keeping an uncluttered desktop! I could never use another computer because all the hacks I have in place.
Of all the minimalist site I have visited, yours is the simplest and the most honest. I can relate to what you have shared here, I’m also a minimalist by necessity and I have learned to find contentment at what I have.
Money may be tempting, but freedom has been at our disposal all along; we’re just looking it at the wrong path.
Thanks for your kind words and for your loyalty! I see you commenting here all the time and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it!
This blog post reminded me of the topic of abundance. A great definition for the term of abundance.
Abundance: The ability to do what you need to do when you need to do it.
Baker