The Power of Enough
At the local ChooseFI meetup this weekend, some new friends and members of the group presented their case study.
I’ve mentioned case studies before, but basically, a member of the group comes with specific questions about their personal financial situation and asks for guidance from the group. They present their total financial picture- including their numbers- and get really excellent guidance.
(There are some brilliant folks in our local Charlotte ChooseFI group.)
At the beginning of the presentation, the presenter shared a story that you may have heard before. It involved the incredibly talented authors Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller chatting to each other at a lavish house party in New York. They were talking about the owner of the house, and how he had made more money that very day than Joseph Heller had made since publishing his hit novel, Catch-22.
Vonnegut asked him how that felt. Heller replied:
“I’ve got something he can never have. The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Powerful, right?
What’s magical is that the FIRE movement gives us the math so that when we know how much we spend each year, we can actually approximate “enough.” Retirement becomes a number, not an age. And when you reach that number, a world of options and freedom open up to you.
(In reality, optionality and increased freedom open up at each stage to FI, but that’s a post for another day.)
Packing up
The idea of “enough” is really striking a chord with me today. Though my last official day of employment is in two weeks, I finished up my last day of in-person work last week. I’m home and starting the process of decluttering- sorting items into donate piles and thinking about the adventure we are about to embark on.
When everything we have and use will be packed into our new-to-us Nissan Rogue.
And as I thought about what is truly essential, or what can be boxed up for storage in my parents’ basement, or what can be discarded, I started thinking about the times in my life when I’ve truly had just enough- and how those have been the happiest times of my life.
(Huge caveat here- I’ve never lived a life of true deprivation or poverty. I’ve always had a place to live and food to eat. For those who have experienced that, my intention here is not to glorify or put a shine on that situation. My intention is to truly highlight the benefits of living on less vs. our current culture of hyper-consumerism.)
Volunteering with AmeriCorps in Alamosa, CO
Photo from La Puente website
After college, I moved to Alamosa, Colorado to volunteer fulltime with AmeriCorps. If you haven’t heard of AmeriCorps, it’s basically the Peace Corps, but in the US.
Two days a week, my job was working at the homeless shelter that was part of a broader non-profit called La Puente Home. I conducted intake interviews for shelter guests, managed donations, made dinners (and a lot of peanut butter cookies) for guests, and worked as an interpreter when the migrant farmworker season started up in earnest.
The other three days a week, I was helping out at the main food bank in Alamosa. This food bank supplied all of the satellite food banks around the valley- which meant that every morning I drove a big white van to the local grocery store with other volunteers to pick up any food that couldn’t be sold but was still safe to consume. Once a week we’d drive out to the satellite locations to help them stock up.
The year I spent in southern CO was a singular, extremely fulfilling and happy experience. A lot of that had to do with the work I was doing- but a lot of it too was that it was an extremely simple way to live.
There were five of us volunteers in a house (Real World style) sharing one car. When you volunteer with AmeriCorps you get a monthly stipend- and in 2004 that was $225 per person PER MONTH. Our housing was included, but we still had to pay for food, gas, or any fun we wanted to have.
I have amazing memories of sitting around the living room with my new friends and learning to knit. When the weather got warmer we went on camping trips together throughout the region, or day hiking trips to the nearby fourteener Mt Blanca or Zapata Falls.
Absolutely no one was worried about what kind of clothes we were wearing, what our hair or makeup looked like or styling our volunteer house to look like some impossible ideal on hgtv.
We had nothing extra. What we did have were the things that actually make humans happy: a sense of purpose, ample time in nature, physical activity and a strong sense of community.
WWOOFing in Mendoza, Argentina
WWOOF stands for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. The premise is simple- you exchange your time and a set number of hours of work per day for room and board on the farm you choose.
The first summer after teaching, I decided I wanted to spend the entire summer solo traveling through Argentina. To keep costs down (and because it sounded amazing) I signed on to volunteer for two weeks at an organic winery south of Mendoza.
The photos above show the mud and wine bottle hut I stayed in, the outdoor WC (newly with privacy flap, thanks to someone I’ve never met but deeply admire named “French Simon”) and my hosts for the week, who lived in the main house.
My job was to clear a water ditch that had grown wild over the summer for four hours a day, in preparation for the government turning the water back on in the region. In exchange I was given a box of breakfast food (homemade bread and jam + instant coffee) and dinner food (the same plus some cheese, veggies and meat). Lunch was a two-hour, wine-fueled communal affair, where most of the food came from the onsite garden.
Honestly, it was equal parts heavenly and lonely. It had many of the same attributes as my time in Colorado- uber simple living (I read the same book over and over and over and over), and a sense of purpose- but it lacked community. I was the only volunteer there at the time and had no way to contact people at home. Still- I had everything I needed, and my body felt fulfilled at the end of every day.
Living & Teaching in Quito, Ecuador
After finishing up my AmeriCorps term in Colorado, I took a job teaching English as a Foreign Language in Quito, Ecuador.
It had been my dream to live in Latin America, and teaching was a way to do just that- I had no idea I’d love the job so much and continue doing it when I returned to the US.
Much like in CO, in Quito I lived in a 3-bedroom townhouse with three other people. My “room” was the top floor communal space. I fashioned a wall out of some bedroom furniture so that my roommates could continue to enjoy the rest of the space.
In exchange for teaching 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, I was paid $850 per month. For Quito in 2006, this was sufficient to do all of the things that 20-something me wanted to do.
My friends and fellow teachers knew that you could pop down to the corner store and get a large bottle of beer for 25 cents. You could often find us picking up a few of those and walking to the nearest park to sit, talk and drink. There was also a spot near my school that sold 25 cent empanadas, which was plenty for lunch between classes.
The bulk of my paycheck went to saving up for a big trip to hike Machu Picchu later that year. The rest I spent on basic needs like rent and food and some fun nights out with friends. There wasn’t a lot of extra, but again- it had all of the ingredients for a perfectly happy life: a strong sense of community, purpose and simplicity.
The Through Line (That I’m Just Now Recognizing)
Maybe you’ve picked up on it too- the thing beyond community, purpose and simplicity that binds these three ultra-happy experiences together?
Adventure.
That’s not what I expected when I sat down to write this post about what it means to have “enough.” I love a little life surprise!
So if these are now the four ingredients of a happy experience, how will our upcoming travels measure up?
A strong sense of community: Honestly, this is the piece I’m worried most about. I love our community in Charlotte, and funnily enough it’s gotten stronger these past one or two years. On the road I’ll have Ryan and Maya of course- but I’ll have to work harder to create a sense of community while traveling full time. I’m curious to see how that will unfold!
Purpose: I’ll continue to volunteer remotely twice a week with Augustine Literacy Project. Plus, I have this blog which is such a fantastic creative outlet. I also find a lot of joy and purpose in planning travel, which will be a near fulltime job!
Simplicity: Being in nature with our only belongings fitting in the trunk? Yes, please.
Adventure: In spades! May it be the biggest one yet.
So- what have been the happiest experiences or times in your life? What are the factors inherent in the experience that made them stand out to you- and how can you bring more of that into your life now?
Drop a comment below and let us know what “enough” means to you!