This post will be a bit different. I really hope you take away something from it. It will probably be a little long and like all my posts I just type as it comes to me. I am living a very different lifestyle here obviously and, just as obviously, being able and more than willing to live like this makes me somewhat different or unusual. Although I've always been a true non-conformist (my family will vouch) there are three things/happenings/whatever you want to call them that I have always remembered that have definately influenced me and have played a part in who I am today and what I value as important. All three have to do with having and doing what you want without the need of a huge amount of money...the realization that materialism is not only unnecessary but makes no sense.
Ok, after that first paragraph, if you're still interested here we go in order of occurence.
1) 1984. Spent 4 weeks in Hawaii with girlfriend. One week on Oahu, three on Maui. Went on a snorkeling cruise one day with about 10 other tourists out to Molokini (google it) on about a 25 foot boat. The owner of the boat and his good looking girlfriend were scuba diving and snorkeling too. They also had fishing rods out there and back. Sold fish caught as "catch-of-the-day" to local restaurants after back from cruise. At one point it was just me and the owner sitting on the back deck of the boat having a beer. I commented to him about what a great lifestyle he had going on here."How the heck do you get to live like this?" He said "You've got to make it yourself. I was just like you 7 years ago. I was over here on vacation and loved it. I was a bodyshop mechanic in Portland, Oregon. When I got home I decided to make it happen. I sold everything I owned--everything. I moved over here, bought a small house and took out a loan to buy this boat. I knew nothing about boats like this or running and looking after one but I learned. I started advertising in the local paper to take people out snorkeling and it took off from there. I paid the boat off just last year. My work day is over at 1 pm every day. "Make it happen--do it yourself"
2) I was chatting with the Used Car manager at the dealership I worked at one day in the late eighties. He told me about a friend of his (in his fifties at that time) who had the license for selling hotdogs on Okanagan beach in Penticton, British Columbia (a very popular western Canadian tourist location--google). He spent all summer on that beautiful beach selling hotdogs and made enough money every summer to spend the whole winter vacationing in Hawaii. Every year. Sounds good to me.
3) Travelled to southeast Asia. Twice. First time to Singapore and Thailand. Loved the people there. I saw how very poor some people were (Thailand) and learned that they knew EXACTLY how good we had it over here in North America. For some reason before that I didn't think third world people would really know--I guess I didn't think that impoverished third world people had access to media. They do and they know. They are just like us except born into poverty. I felt guilty and depressed. I realized how many things I took for granted at home. I was very impressed with their strength of family and faith. They all spoke English by the way. Every person I met.
3) When I was still married (divorce is a whole other topic I won't get into) my wife and daughter and I went to the Philippines in 2007 to visit her family (Yes, I married an Asian girl after that first trip). We spent about 10 days living in the rural Philippines--in a very basic house--nowhere near any tourist areas. Almost all of her family there (approximately 40-50 people) lived within walking distance of each other. From the oldest grandparents to the newest babies. They all get together very often for meals, parties, whatever. Fairly poor, but they still knew how to have fun with what they had. Karaoke, beer, food. I had a great time. They greatly envied us and our material wealth we had in North America. That bothered me a lot and I had numerous conversations with them about that. I told them about how I often dealt with supposedly wealthy people and how just having money didn't mean they were happy in life. Stuck in traffic, divorces, kids on drugs, rat-race life, etc. I envied their very simple life in the Philippines and they envied our material goods here. It was kind of strange. Subsistence farming---the back-to-basics of it all really influenced me. I owned a very fancy collector Lincoln Continental at the time. When we got home from that trip I just didn't get the enjoyment out of it anymore. It suddenly seemed so ostentatious that I didn't feel right driving it. Sold it. So how the hell does living by myself in a bus in the woods in Canada relate to that? Because it seems everyone I meet over here now is so materialistic (cars, houses, keep up with the Jones's kind of stuff) that I just want no part of it or them really. Heck I only got a cell phone a few years ago because I got forced into it.
I don't believe you have to have a lot of money or material things to be happy or content in life. Am I completely content now? No, nothing is ever perfect or ever will be. I'm just following my nose, doing what I want to do and ignoring convention. If I won the lottery tomorrow I would certainly go on a few trips because I love to travel but ultimately I think I would end up living much like I am now.
There is more to me and my life than what I have posted here but the above things have stuck with me and had an influence on how I look at things. I'm hesitating on hitting the SUBMIT button on this post. Will people get it? I don't know. I suppose some will. Some won't. I'm not even sure I really do. It is what it is.
I often tell people to travel to southeast Asia. It's a different world over there and it will change the way you look at things.



House we stayed in. No road to it. Had to walk through banana and coffee trees to get to it.



The local market.