Through most of my college years and early 20’s,
I drove an aqua,
1994,
Ford Explorer.
The cloth ceiling and seats were torn,
the radio had been stolen,
the AC was shot,
and whether it was the starter, the ignition switch, or the fuel injector,
sometimes the thing just wouldn’t start
(though of course the mechanic could never get it to reproduce the issue).
I’d totaled my dad’s pick up driving through the rain in Murfreesboro, TN,
and both of my parents were small business owners during the biggest recession in US history.
They broke their backs to pay for my education,
and there wasn’t much left to go around,
but somehow my dad scrounged up for the Explorer,
just to make sure I had a way to get from A to B.
When I graduated college,
I moved back home and started working with my dad doing small remodeling jobs;
And finally attempting to evolve into something that resembled an adult,
I just couldn't wait to rid myself of that old green SUV.
At the time,
my mom was driving a Saab and working with a growing multilevel marketing company that rewarded it’s high-level salesmen with a white Lexus;
and she told me that when she got her white Lexus,
she would give me a good mother/son deal on that Saab.
I was young and hungry,
I wasn’t making much,
and I yearned for the validation of a nicer car.
Back then,
I assigned much meaning to that Saab.
I just knew that driving it wouldn’t only change the way I was viewed by my peers,
it would change the way I viewed myself.
And as fate would have it,
I eventually did drive that car.
But the thing was,
by the time I owned the vehicle,
it not only inevitably had more miles on it,
but I’d just as inevitably moved on emotionally to some new fixation,
some perceived validation that I truly believed would be a real game changer.
In reality,
though it was nice to have music and AC when driving through the Tennessee summer heat,
those creature comforts aside,
driving the car didn’t really seem to change anything at all.
Ultimately,
even in hindsight,
it took me years to see things more clearly.
As Albert Einstein once said,
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
It was really only after leaving home,
starting my own business,
moving back home, moving out again,
living in one friends office, living in another’s guest room,
back in and back out,
all in the name of manifesting some sense of purpose in this life,
that I began to take a look back and find,
how little meaning any such status symbols truly hold.
It’s one of our deepest running and most frequently reinforced ideals,
the perceived correlation between possession and a sense of well being.
And in the end,
many will leave this world still believing they are only one or two somethings away from peace.
But as time has passed,
I have only found moreover,
the benefit of nurturing a certain vein of Minimalism in all areas of life.
In fact,
over the years,
I’ve worked hard to hedge my lifestyle in many different ways.
Dietarily,
while I once ate fast food and lunch meats several days a week,
leaving me overfed but undernourished,
I now eat more meals for nourishment,
and less for entertainment.
Progressing from chicken sandwiches,
to chicken wraps,
to tuna melts,
and finally landing on a diet consisting mostly of fish, rice, beans, and veggies,
my meals are now leaner, meaner,
and actually serve me.
As a former college athlete,
taking this more Spartan approach to my diet,
along with making consistent incremental improvements,
has allowed me to maintain the energy necessary to work out at 5am most days of the week,
and to have the lowest body fat of my life at age 35.
Similarly,
in an age of technological excess and constant stimulation,
like many millennials,
I've often found myself drowning in information but starving for wisdom.
In an effort to better manage my screen addictions,
I took a journey back in time and bought an alarm clock,
this way I don’t look at my phone when I wake up in the middle of the night,
and it isn’t the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.
Most days I also work out,
sit in the sauna, take a cold shower,
and meditate before all else,
further extending the early hours I spend without a screen in front of my face.
My TV is rarely on before 7pm,
I don’t watch the news,
I listen to books in the car,
and while it isn’t a permanent hiatus,
over the past couple years I’ve been mostly off social media,
and i have to tell ya,
it’s been nothing short of liberating.
Perhaps most impactful,
when it comes to relationships,
we live in a world that preaches quality,
but practices quantity.
Throughout my life I’ve been as susceptible as any to the desire for the approval of others,
but in the end I’ve found that,
while everyone is worthy of love,
not everyone is worthy of my love,
right now.
Though I was an only child,
I was blessed to grow up with a very tight knit group,
many of whom are still my closest friends today.
Over the decades of learning how to love one another,
we’ve gone through ups and downs,
together and apart;
and if there's one incontrovertible fact that I've found to be true,
its that there are only so many hours in the day,
and a person only has so much time to give.
But that said,
as I was taught early in my business life,
if you feed your family,
your family will feed you.
And as it applies most directly to that old aqua SUV,
in an ever more materialistic and consumer driven society,
most tend to value appearing wealthy,
more so than actually building wealth.
I grew up in an affluent community,
and I too have oft found myself under the spell of shiny things,
but all that glitters is not gold.
Out of school,
while many of my peers lifestyles inflated parallel to their salary,
given that I was jumping from house to house and not making much,
I didn’t have a choice but to keep my costs low.
I’ve never paid a cable bill, I still don’t pay a car note, and I didn’t have healthcare until I was 30 years old.
So when I finally did start bringing in more income,
it was that much easier to stave off buying more stuff,
and to instead focus in my long term financial well being.
Now I live in one side of a duplex I own,
letting my tenant's rent pay my note and utilities,
I'm owner or part owner of another 4 properties,
and I’ve increased my NET worth to within the 80-90th percentile of people my age.
What's more,
given my lean lifestyle and increasing investment income,
I'm positioned to invest even more aggressively in the coming years.
We live in a world that glorifies excess,
but at the end of the day,
the successful and healthy life is most often rooted in moderation, simplification,
and an undeniable theme of minimalism.
Whether it’s keeping our diet clean and of appropriate portion,
remaining conscious to our consumption of the technologies we often allow to rule our lives,
cutting out the fat to focus more time,
energy, and love on our most meaningful relationships,
or simply decluttering our lives of all that stuff,
to keep better sight of our path and of more worthy opportunities,
unburdening ourselves of those things we believe we need to make us happy,
almost always leads to wading in an ever deepening river of peace.
Because life is not about getting all you want,
it’s about wanting all that you already have.
So let go of all it is you fear to lose,
and liberate yourself to live a more deliberate life
that is truly worth living.