Our lives are driven by narratives. The myths that tell us what we’re capable of. The stories that inform us, set our boundaries, and… hopefully, bind us together. They are the filters that we use to interpret our world. Some of the stories are high functioning. Others far less so.
In American life today the story is you cannot be satisfied… or perhaps I should more accurately say the US economy, since its primarily based on your consumption, can’t afford to have you be satisfied. And so… it’s become your patriotic duty to consume well past the point of where it hurts.
To this end many of our best minds use our sciences to pinpoint the weak spots in our thinking, and others use those discoveries to better aim their messages of why we need to buy the shit they’re selling.
“More is better.” “New is better.” “Better is better.” Drive this car and you’ll finally get laid, without having to pay for it (unless you count the price of the car). Drink this beer and you’ll have that dudes life. Eat this spaghetti and the family dinner will be a garden of smiles and laughter. Behind the curtain of every story… money.
“Don’t worry”, the message says… “if life sucks, you can buy your way out.” Incredibly, many of us believe it. We actually think that we can use money to shield ourselves from the shit life throws at us. And so, rather unsurprisingly I would say, an enormous network of banks has been created to finance our endless attempts to buy our way out. Causing the average American to spend the majority of their life in debt.
You can’t imagine the number of people I’ve coached who have driven up in $100,000 cars, who live in multi-million dollar estates, only to tell me that their life is fucked.
Meanwhile, the test of the truth of all of this has been going on south of our border for… well, all of our lives. In countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua… etc. where work and money and material wealth isn’t nearly as plentiful. Ironically, these are the places that our American narrative tells us we should fear greatly to tread. Coincidence? I seriously doubt it.
We’ve spent the last two years exploring these countries, and I’ve gotta tell you the States filter pack is essentially worthless here.
When we see an older person working hard in the States… we assume they fucked up their retirement planning, and hope like hell it doesn’t happen to us. (Mostly because we hate the jobs we do… which explains why we so desperately want to retire.) But in these countries the older people are thrilled to still be useful. I offered to take the burden off the old man pictured above. He told me that he had no burden. A great talk ensued, the upshot of which was that local deliveries were now his role in the family furniture business that he’d created many years ago. He loved doing it. It was what “God continued to allow him to wake up for.”
The first world story is families who live in small huts with dirt floors are struggling, and unhappy. Yet we’ve actually sat in those dwellings with these families while they tell us how great it is just to be out of the rain. They don’t care about the floor, and as for the small spaces… it keeps them close. Their words, not mine.
When Americans see twelve year old kids working a family business they think of it as abuse. Because giving and doing as much as you can for your kids is how we roll. But listen, many of the kids in these small villages are incredibly responsible and capable… at a much younger age than I thought possible.
Generally speaking the American story is that there’s a better… as in more luxurious way to live, and we should all be striving for it. But these people, all these wonderful people that we’ve met are telling us they’re just happy for the gift of life. That it’s family and friends and community that brings the greatest value to their lives, and that little could make their lives much better. Perhaps the glue for all of this can be found in their narrative… that “were all in this together”.
And… there’s some substance behind what they say. School shootings, anti depressants, and erectile dysfunction drugs are virtually unheard of here. Although there is this more or less regional belief that stout beer enhances the firmness of a mans… well, you know. I bought a stout one night from an old shop keeper. He looked at me… then Malia, and back to me, a wry smile crossed his face. I asked to be let in on the joke… he explained the magical powers of stout. I asked if it worked for him. “Don’t know… never needed to try”, he answered with a smile. You should have seen the look on his face when Malia stepped up and ordered a stout.
Now… you could say that all of this stems from the general lack of money that exists here. And you’d probably be right. But what does that say about money? Give these folks the opportunity to make plenty of cash and… they’ve no longer got time to raise their children, they buy bigger spreads, move farther from the neighbors, ship the kids off to better schools, the old folks retire and move away, they donate cash instead of time, the community distorts… giving rise to a generally depressed and bonerless society… even with an endless supply of stout. And really… what does all of this get traded for? More shit that no one ever needed in the first place.
It would seem that our economic story is exploding our society… the money that our story is tells us is so vital does little but, paradoxically, put us farther in debt, expand our waistlines, and ultimately push us farther and farther apart.
Maybe money is like sugar. So poisonous that it slowly kills us, yet so tasty that we just don’t fucking care. And like sugar, all those so called experts who have assured us that the it’s good for us… are on the take. Paid off by the few who benefit the most from our addiction.
Not long ago I read a story about a guy who lost seventy pounds, got down to single digit body fat, and entered a fitness competition. All in less than two years. Four months after the competition, he’d packed half of those pounds back on. The cravings, he said, were inescapable.
Then I read a story about a couple who took two years to drive from Alaska to Ushuaia, the southern most city in South America. It was the first freedom they’d experienced in their adult lives. They returned to Ca with the intentions of making some upgrades on their truck and once again pointing themselves towards parts unknown. But… one year after their return, she’d taken a serious job in Boston, her husband was similarly engaged, and their truck, the trusty iron steed that had taken them to freedom and back, was likely to be sold.
They’re the same story… inescapable cravings.
When you’re surrounded by addicts, even the strongest among us will start to exhibit some of their behavior. Golden Corral chocolate fountains and memory foam beds have undermined many a campaign.
Whenever I start blathering on like this people are quick to remind me that the pursuit of money has brought amazing things to our lives. As proof of this they usually point first to technology… like the internet, and smart phones. Granted… they are amazing creations, that are used primarily to pass around cat videos and quotes from people who actually had adventures. Next they remind me about medical advances… that, in most cases, have done little but help us live beyond our useful lifespan. And then they usually go to the conveniences that we enjoy, like better cars, TVs, and appliances. All shit that we never really needed in the first place. Shit that was supposed to bring us more leisure time… but somehow forgot to.
It’s one thing to sit back and complain about all this shit… another to do something about it. What you are witness to here is the story of a family who did do something. We left. Not because I’m totally opposed to full time employment (although my brother may tell you otherwise). We left because, at this moment, the America that I see is a tough place to create a family… which, by the way, is a very different thing than merely having kids.
I think of creating a family as our greatest creative act… our most important contribution to this tiny blue dot. Something far too important to play second fiddle to a job. Bad products get eliminated in the next cycle. Bad companies go out of business. Bad kids become bad adults and fuck up the world.
Over the years I’ve watched people who have everything make more and different problems for themselves. It seems that we always need something to push against. And when your natural enemies are vanquished… well, it appears we turn on ourselves. In other words, having everything makes you crazy.
So, we looked at our very comfortable life from a different angle and decided that it wasn’t nearly as good for our kids as we thought. In fact, if my theory about having everything making people crazy is right… it was actually a subtle form of child abuse. Things had to change.
Parenting starts at the top. Do as I say and not as I do doesn’t work. The only question remaining was whether we had the balls to make the change. So… we took a very deep breath and stripped our lives back down to bare wood and started over.
Parting with a lifetime worth of possessions was not easy. And I’ll confide in you that the night before we handed over the keys to our 3,500 square feet, 3 acre ranch to move into a camper in the back of my truck, I was pretty sure that I’d rat fucked us all.
But… things are replaceable. Time isn’t.
Three years later, after we’ve travelled through some places that are supposedly so dangerous that just the though of them shrinks the average American butthole to the size of a decimal point. It’s apparent that we made a great choice for our family. We are all very different people. Much closer to each other (both literally and figuratively). More self-reliant. More skilled. More confident. And with a great deal to push against. Making us… according to my theory anyway, less crazy. (You’re entitled to disagree.) The simple things that we used to take for granted… like a hot shower, or an endless supply of water are now luxuries for us and we’re psyched when we get them.
We’ve tested the stories that the first world had to throw at us and found them to be seriously lacking in substance. More isn’t better. Larger living spaces don’t make life better. Perfecting today is a great strategy for tomorrow. Children are perfectly capable of assuming the responsibility for the lions share of their learning. And travel is absolutely fatal to prejudice, misinformation, and fear.
Please don’t misunderstand the message here… I’m not saying this lifestyle is perfect, that we’ve solved for X, or that this approach will fit everyone. What I am saying is that it’s a different story… one that’s got more substance to it than many of our popular American stories would have you believe, and if you’re unwilling to find out on your own… well, you have no choice but to take our word for it.