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blogging, corona virus, covid-19, creating, fun, inspiration, isolation, joy, life, new life, projects, quality, quarentine, travel, van life, virus, youtube
Lately during this isolation, much like I imagine much of the population is I’ve been binge watching YouTube videos. I’ve been torturing myself with video blogs of people driving cross country, camping and living out of vans. I began my free fall into the many videos of people traveling, vacationing and a surprising amount people living full time in their vans. This sparked the thought of are these people very smart? Bear with me.
What is smart and the intelligent thing to do by traditional standards is work a job, buy a house and land and settle down. This financially is also a wise thing to do as you are likely to get a larger return down the road if you were to sell, even if you haven’t done more than basic maintenance on the home. And land, well.. it doesn’t depreciate so there you have a pretty sound investment. My husband and I recently bought a house with a little land and I can’t say I have any regrets. After all, vehicles can only depreciate over time no matter what you’ve put into it unless you have the skills and resources to fix up a classic.
However, there is something about van life I have come to appreciate and even want for such things as weekend road trips and maybe week long travel around the country. What is not traditionally categorized as a wise investment I think is something very smart indeed. Putting life and experiences first instead of killing yourself to acquire more material possessions is something maybe we should all start striving for.
Especially maybe in a time when most stores are shut down and we aren’t able to go out to movies, festivals or entertain ourselves in our regular ways, maybe we should strive to create unique and special experiences instead. For many this is more time with family, for others a time to start a new project. If you’re lucky enough to get away I see people traveling and getting back to nature and away from the things we’ve been told to enjoy. Some people are taking this time to start their own business with the hope of working for themselves.
I can’t help but feel this is smart. During this time of isolation I haven’t pined for pretty clothes and makeup, I’m not interested in the newest tech or what other people have. I’ve focused on myself, my husband and our two dogs and what makes us happy. We’ve laughed, shared stories, watched movies, worked on projects and more. I can’t help but feel like we have all been focusing on the wrong things this whole time. Instead of worrying about the next investment or what will bring us more things in the future how about we focus on the here and now? How about we do things that make us happy and build memories? How about we get creative and try new things? How about we travel when we can? How about we start creating the life we actually want?
Understandably, we may be limited until this ends, for instance, we haven’t been traveling and we haven’t been going out to eat. But that’s not just because of this isolation either. Before all this happened we didn’t splurge even occasionally, go out, even to have a drink, or travel. We were focused on the next things we wanted to buy for the new house and toys we wanted for ourselves for the future. I will just say those things would’ve have been making us happy now. They would have sat idle while we did other activities that didn’t cost us a dime.
My whole life I’ve looked to the future and planned, worked for and waited for the things I wanted. I know we are all excited for this to end and it will, IT WILL. But in the meantime why not start creating a life that will bring you real and significant joy while we are all waiting here in the present?