Food, Water, Shelter: The Essentials for Life

Image Source: Angelo DeSantis

Food, water, and shelter are what humans need to survive.  Air and an Atmosphere could be added to that list, but on planet earth, those items are a gift to mankind.

The basics for human survival are actually quite simple.  We need about 8 glasses of fresh water, 2000-3000 calories of healthy food, and protection from the elements.  All else is either a help or a distraction.

Life is About More than Surviving

Life can be whittled down to the essentials, but life is about more than just surviving, its about thriving.  As a Minimalist, the tendency can be to cut out everything, even get a high out of cutting everything out of life, and in the end be left with nothing.  Nothing wouldn't be a bad thing, but there is nothing wrong with finding joy in anything.  The point is to cut out all non-beneficial things, and things that eat at your joy.  Just realize where your true joy comes from and don't let it all be caught up in material things. People can bring joy, faith can bring joy, and experiences can bring joy.

Living With Less Teaches You Thankfulness 

When your life in voluntarily, or involuntarily cut down to nothing, you learn to appreciate what little you do have on a very deep level.  When all of a sudden, all you have is food, water and shelter, you begin to appreciate the delicacies of life like flush toilets, coffee house lattes, and electricity.  

Image Source: Adam Inglis via Flickr 

Build From the Essentials

 As a mental exercise, strip your life down to the essentials, and then build out from there.  It's called Lifestyle Design, and it's about designing your lifestyle to achieve your goals and uphold your values.  Some people just want more time with their kids, others want to travel the world, or build orphanages.  Whatever it is, Lifestyle Design focuses on what is important in your life.   What is the bare minimum you need to choose the life you want?

Reconsider the Essentials 

So you need food, water, and shelter, but how you think about each of those items might be the key to your lifestyle design.  For your ideal lifestyle, do you need a 3500 square foot home, or just a small cottage in the woods?  Do you have to pay for municipal water, or could you collect creek water or rainfall?  Do you have to shop for your foods at major shopping centers, or can you grow your own food?  Can you trade goods you produce with your neighbors, or at a farmer's market? 

For some, growing their own food isn't an option, because their ideal lifestyle is travel.  That is fine, everyone will find their own path.  The important part is to cut out the things that are meaningless, and rejoice in the things that are meaningful in your life. 

This guy lived out of a van in the Duke University parking lot.  He walked away with a degree from Duke and no student loan debt.  Read his story here.  If you want something bad enough, no sacrifice is too big. 

A Minimalist Guide to the Bucket List

Image Source: Flickr: Morgan Sherwood 

What is a Bucket List?

A bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket.  Everyone's got a bucket list, either a hard copy or a mental list of things they want to do before they die.  It sounds morbid, but it is actually a wonderful tool for organizing what is important to you and setting achievable goals.

Time is Short

What absolutely kills me is talking to older people who are too nimble to finish their bucket lists.  They says thinks like, "I wish I could have climbed Half Dome, but now I'll never be able to do it."  The pain of regret is worse than physical pain.  You only get one shot around this massive watery ball, you have to make every moment count.  Time slips by way too fast!  

Set a Concrete Plan of Action

Making a bucket list is easy, executing it is hard.  If you put off everything into the category of "someday," someday may never come.  Fear, a lack of prioritization, and excuses keep many from achieving perfectly achievable goals.  The cost of checking items off of your bucket list is much smaller than you think.  

Paris: Check! 

You have to have a plan!  You're not going to be handed a plane ticket to Paris from a stranger on a bus.  However, if you do, don't take it; that's creepy.  Ever seen Taken?  
If Paris is at the top of the list, then for about $1000-$1200 and a week of your time, you can see the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the whole shebang.  If you travel in the off season, you can find plane tickets for under $800 from the West Coast of the U.S.  How do I know? I've done it! A few nights of  hosteling, some street crepes, and a couple of Euro for the entry fees, and you've got yourself a tour of the city of lights. 
"That's too expensive!" You might say.  Leaving this world having not seen all of the glorious art and architecture of Paris, that is the real expense, if I may counter.  If you want it badly enough you will do whatever it takes to get there.  

The Purpose of Recreation

Photo Source: Lucia Sanchez

 The end of labor is to gain leisure.  -Aristotle

We toil through this shortening life, gathering, accumulated, stressing, and amassing.  What is it all for? Aristotle believes it is to recreate.

The common consumer lifestyle seems to suggest that Aristotle's words are true.  The consumer pulls off 13 years of grade school, plus another 4-8 years of college, in order to get a 50 hour a week job, so that he can play golf on the weekend with his buddies.   In fact, he is so stressed that he needs to play a few hours of golf, a week, to keep his blood pressure down.

30 years of this cycle equate to a 3000 square foot home, jammed packed with the coolest toys, and 30 years of retirement, where guess what, he wants to play golf.

What is the purpose of leisure in our lives?  What does it accomplish?  Is there a blurry line between recreating and working?

Recreating allow us to express ourselves.
Participating in a sport or hobby allows you to express yourself, to push your limits, to explore your own capabilities.  Recreation allows you to use your gifts in the perfect venue.  

Recreating allows you to have "me time."
When you're out surfing a wave, or hitting golf balls at the range, you can just tune out and focus on your swing. It affords a great opportunity for self discovery.  The extreme focus of a hobby, or the physical output of a sport, are great for de-stressing from the rest of life.

Recreating builds relationships.
Recreating with friends and family members builds companionship, trust,  and camaraderie.  Even if you're not talking, it can be comforting to know that someone else is experiencing the same thing as you.
For instance, you and your best friend are backpacking, walking quietly along a trail, and you see the sun majestically come up over the Rocky Mountains.   It's more rewarding to share those incredible moments.

Mixing Work With Pleasure

It is often talked about in the lifestyle design community, that when you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.  However, when pleasure becomes work, it does lose something.

For instance, you love playing golf.  It is your highest passion and greatest form of self expression. You decide to make it a career, your bread and butter, out of teaching golf lessons in Palm Beach.  Instead of early peaceful mornings, watching the sun sparkle the morning dew on the 5th green, you are teaching the retired how to properly grip a club with arthritic hands.  Everyday is another person, but the same routine of swing and critique, swing and critique.  You used to love giving tips to receptive strangers, but now that it puts food on the table, it's lost the appeal.

When you begin getting paid something, you lose the freedom of just enjoying it.  When you work at a job you love, it can be very rewarding, however, remember to keep something for yourself, something you love to do just for the sake of doing it.