Small Revolutions: Voluntary Simplicity in Devon

Regrets

“I would much rather have regrets about not doing what people said, than regretting not doing what my heart led me to and wondering what life had been like if I'd just been myself.”

- Brittany Renee

Being Poor

Financially things are a bit tight right now. Downshifting isn't rosy all the time, and it;s a struggle to save for our wedding in August as well as make sure I have transport to work (purchasing a secondhand moped) and pay off overdrafts.

In money terms, we're poor.

Cliche as it is, we're so much richer in other ways.

Life is no longer about working like a dog and deferring pleasure to some dubious and vague future endpoint. I am living my happiness right now - I am no longer waiting for it to arrive.

Devon is beautiful. and I'm working outside on a farm doing as close to my dream job as it is possible to be (the only difference being that one day, I hope to do similair things with my own land and make a living from it).

There are compromises of course. Things we can't afford, wants that can't be satisfied without the money we haven't got. But it's ok!

Last week, we managed to get 16 meals out of a free range chicken! But every meal was truly delicious (chicken, pumpkin and soya bean barley risotto were the first two, then stir fried wholemeal noodles, and the bones and bits were boiled and made 12 lunches).

I love the buddhist phrase "you only have moments to live". It invokes a brief sense of urgency when you read it one way. But if you only had a few moments left, you'd try to be totally present, experiencing the life that was there, rather than wishing yourself somewhere else. And then you read it the other way - that despite our habit of drawing a line from past to present to future, both the future and the past are not really real - they're only in our minds as anticipation and memory traces. So really all we have are a series of interconnected presents, moments if you will.

Since this life change there have been more moments. Moments when I have stopped to look at sunsets and sunrises, or watch a marvellous earthworm wriggle on my hand. Moments just cuddling up in bed and not wanting for anything. Moments where I am happy to be just here, without wishing myself anywhere else.

I can't honestly say when else I have been happier in my whole life.

So, for moments anyway, those bills don't mean flip.

I know that there is someone lonely executive at my bank who is minted to all hell, not a debt in the world, eminently enviable. And he doesn't have a sniff of the happiness I experience every day.

Every day now I am ready to die because I know I am living my moments on the right path. And may that continue until I get very old and wrinkled like a prune, with my bones barely hanging together.