Читать книгу The Joy of Tiny House Living - Chris Schapdick - Страница 15

The American Dream has always emphasized going big and doing better: go to college, buy a car, get married, buy a house, have kids, retire, and so on. There are certain elements of this philosophy that we’ve all adopted; our parents likely bought into this idea as well. But in the modern day, some people are concluding that this exact vision is not necessarily what they want out of life.

Part of the American Dream in the last century has been focused on consumerism and consumption. As a result, most of us have acquired way too much stuff for our own good. We have houses that are too big and filled with too many things. We have garages that aren’t used for parking cars but for housing our overflow of stuff. And when there simply isn’t enough space in the house, well, off-site self-storage is a booming industry in the United States. There are over 50,000 self-storage facilities in the U.S. that bring in over $30 billion in annual revenue. Many people end up living to work instead of working to live because they have big mortgages and other financial commitments. After acquiring more and more possessions and tying themselves down financially, many people have started to wonder whether this is indeed what they want to be doing. They ask, “How do I break this cycle? How do I lower my bills? How do I decouple from this never-ending rat race? Is it making me happy?”

Less is very often more.

Going tiny is a process of self-discovery; it’s about figuring out what’s fulfilling in life to you, other than possessions. I’m sure you’ve already heard of the notion of experiences being more valuable than stuff. We all have stuff, but when you spend your money and time on more experiences instead of more stuff, you enhance your life. This trading of things for experiences is quite rewarding. And the side effect of prioritizing experiences over stuff, living clutter-free, for many people equates to living worry-free. There’s been a great deal of interest recently in books that help you downsize your possessions. Letting go of things and assessing what’s truly important to you is a process that you have to take on personally, figuring out where you fit into the minimalism spectrum.

As we discussed in the previous section, tiny houses are a lot smaller, and therefore the things that you put into your tiny house have to, by their very nature, be important to you. Otherwise, there’s simply no room for them. As you go through this process of deciding what experiences you value, what it is you’re trading your possessions for, you will learn what’s important to you, find out who you are, define what you want from your life, and take steps toward that.