Living Well: Your Own Personal Declaration of Independence
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Let’s face it – the alternative media is filled to the brim with articles foretelling economic collapse, world war, depopulation, etc. Even Silver Vigilante is totally guilty of being heavy on negative news without a lot of workable solutions. But, on this Fourth of July, Independence Day, let’s take a look at what can make the United States great again – entrepreneurial spirit.
But first – the reality of the situation. Small to medium size businesses are not hiring – they cannot. They must, like an emerald in a meadow, blend in with their surrounding environment. Cost-cutting measures are money. For example, when we walk into a grocery store today, the shopping experience is much like the one of old – you go in, grab that which you are looking for, and walk towards the checkout registers. But, this is where the experience of today differs from the experience of the past. Instead of the grocery store having enough employees to serve the customers in a timely manner, there are only a couple of people working. Go at the wrong time and you’ll find that the lines stretch down the food aisles.
The bottom line reigns supreme. In post-2008 banking collapse America, as depression ravages the land, the big corporations are not suffering. They’ve learned to adapt – they’ve increased their prices and fired workers. Their profits might be larger than ever. They needed a good excuse, after all, to bring in their own austerity measures.
And so, it’s just plain tough to get a job. Everybody knows this. But, I submit that you ought not be searching for a job if you are unemployed or looking to move on from your current job. That is a slave’s mentality. Instead of looking for a job, what you really should be looking for is money. That’s all – just money. And you do not necessarily need a job to get money. You can create your own job.
And that is a major key. YOU can start a website, setup an Adsense account. I highly encourage you to do so. Most of us have never created a dime for ourselves, but today it is easier than ever. One does not necessarily need to stick with the website as a source of income, but I highly encourage that everyone somehow get at least a little bit of experience making money themselves. It is a liberating experience, and can awaken your entrepreneurial spirit.
We are inculcated with the belief that we need to live the way in which the dominant culture lives. That we are overwhelmed by the dominating influence of the System. Whilst the system was right there competing with nature over our earliest thoughts, we do have free will. We have the option to radically re-alter our lifestyle and leave the rat race. Everything we know is wrong.
Rents for example. It is considered safe today to rent instead of buy a home. The rental market is being flooded with people who have been foreclosed upon, do not believe the bottom is in in the housing market or are not looking to buy due to financial limitations. But, is renting really the best option?
From a financial perspective the answer is definitely not. The better option would be for us to uproot ourselves completely. Why not look into buying an RV and living in it? There are RV parks all over and they cost roughly 400 bucks a month to stay at. That is cheaper than rent. Add in the RV monthly payments on the reasonable loan you might have to take out, and that gets you up to what you would be paying for rent anywhere. The difference? YOU GET SOME OF THE MONEY BACK IN THE END – if you choose to sell the RV. You can then cut your rent for two years down to a mere 10,000 dollars. For me personally, that would mean cutting my rent in half.
Not free enough of the system? Check out this idea from Cheap RV Living. I am particulary interested in the idea of becoming a campground host. Get paid minimum wage, forty hours a week, but be rent free. Not to mention you can live in the wilderness:
of your first thoughts is, “How will I earn money?” The answer depends on your circumstances.
Vandwellers come in two types, one lives in a city and works a regular job while stealth parking.
The other travels and lives in many different types of places such as National Forests or BLM
land, only staying in cities when there is some need for it.While I have been both types of a vandweller, I am currently traveling fulltime. I camp in the
National Forests or BLM land and travel around to the National Parks, photographing the
amazing beauty of this country. I save money bycamping for free on dispersed campsites,
but with the high price of gas, I found I couldn’t afford to travel as much as I wanted. I
needed to find another source of income to keep traveling. A fellow vandweller told me about
workamper.com. He had joined the website and had been flooded with job offers working in
National Forests as a campground host. That really appealed to me!! I could live for free in a
campground in a beautiful setting, and get paid for all the hours I work! On my days-off I
could travel around the area and take pictures of beautiful scenery. It sounded perfect to, so
I paid to join the site ($34 a year), and started looking for jobs.The first thing you do is write a resume telling about your work experience and describing the
kind of job you are looking for. My friend had told me that there were many RVers who
wanted the jobs with full-hookups, but there weren’t many people who wanted the
more remote campgrounds which only have water and a pit toilet. So when I wrote my
resume, I described myself and said I specifically wanted remote campgrounds without hookups.
Since I don’t have air-conditioning, one high priority I had was that I needed to work in a place
that had cool summers.Within two weeks I had three job offers. The first was on the Oregon coast in an RV park, the
second was in Tahoe National Forest in California, and the third was at the Mt. Elbert
campground, just outside of Leadville, Colorado. They would all have been great jobs. They all
paid minimum wage for 40 hours a week. The minimum wage in Oregon and California was $8 an
hour, and in Colorado it was $7 an hour, but I really wanted to see Colorado, so I took that job.
I am just finishing my first season and it has been really terrific. My campground is between
the two highest mountains in Colorado, Mt Elbert, and Mt. Massive, I literally can walk from my
site to either trailhead in five minutes. I am a few hours away from Rocky Mountain National
Park, Aspen, Crested Butte, Vail, and Breckinridge. It is a stunningly beautiful area. As a huge
bonus, because I am at 10,000 feet, the weather was never hot.
Whenever I greet a camper to the campground, and they find out that I live in the campground
and get paid to do it, they tell me how envious they are. They’re right, it is a wonderful life
that I highly recommend to all traveling vandwellers.
The point is there are cracks in the system. By becoming creative and breaking out of our inculcated cultural norms, many alternative lifestyles present themselves. First and foremost, realizing one does not need to be dependent upon a boss – and that money isn’t everything – can help us find relaxation and begin exploring our own livelihoods.
