Downshifting – An Epilogue
A long while back I wrote a small series on this blog on the theme of downshifting. At the time, it was something I was interested in, and judging by the visitors I get, it is something more and more people are experimenting with every day.
I think my experiment is done.
I have been a freelance writer for the better part of two years. I was more or less forced into it after the company I was working for closed down overnight. Making writing my trade was the logical choice. I went to school to learn how to write, all I’ve ever wanted was to make my living off of words. Lately, though, I’ve noticed that my motivation for putting together words has tanked.
The very thing I had downshifted my life for no longer satisfied me. In fact, some days, I absolutely hated doing it. My time had been filled up by running a freelance writing business (which only consisted of maybe 20% writing) and as a result I no longer enjoyed what I did. Most days it was like pulling teeth to put together a block of copy or a peice of content. Blogging became a chore. I can’t tell you the last time I even attempted to write fiction was. What is the point of being a writer if I don’t much enjoy it?
So I have moved writing off the center platform. No longer is my ability to produce words related to whether or not I had a place to sleep or food to eat. I am leaving freelancing and heading back into the world of full-time work. Upshifting, so to speak. But for the better. I have carefully sought out and found a position that I will likely really enjoy and will open me up to pursue better things in my life.
When freelancing, there were times I wasn’t sure what was and wasn’t “work.” As a result, I had an impossible time establishing the work/life balance that so many strive to find.
What does this mean for Not Quite Hippie? While I will have considerably less time to put towards producing content and updates, I can’t exactly pull the plug. There is, after all, a community here. A community of people who are interested in real-food defense, gardening, the politics of energy, and more. While I may be the primary content producer here, I feel it is rather bold to just say that this is mine. To just up and leave? That seems unjust. In just over a year I have found an enthusiastic audience and a topic I am endlessly interested in. Hell, you guys even decided I was your Most Valuable Blogger last year. Nope, this ain’t going anywhere.
The gardens will continue to grow and my curiosity towards a more sustainable life will always be at my center. I am expanding to include more writers in the content production process, opening up my platform to allow those who are passionate about a sustainable topic a chance to have their voice heard (Interested? Hit me up at dave at notquitehippie dot com). Formats will change, as will designs and layouts and content organization. I’ll still be here, open to your questions and ideas, always thinking green.
My new, personal focus is to bring my writing back to a place where I can really enjoy producing words. I want to write more stories for my fiction-starved audiences. I have a dozen blog project ideas that I’d love to see come to fruition.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, concerns, questions, whatever. Comment below or shoot an email to the address mentioned above.
read moreDownshifting Part 3 | Shifting
I’ve written before on what downshifting is and how it has impacted my life. I’ve sacrificed my desire to work in an office at a job I don’t totally understand to write more and do what I love. You’re looking at the evidence. This blog, this lifestyle, the people I associate with and the things I talk about. Likely, none of this would have happened if I had to spend hours out of my week looking as if I stepped out of the pages of Esquire.
I spend my days playing in dirt. Pulling weeds. Balancing compost mixtures. I also write and come up with ideas on how I can keep doing this – how I can keep living for myself rather than working for another.
I know this is one of those things we all wish we could keep doing forever. I know I’m pretty lucky. At the same time, I know my meager bank accounts and constantly casual wardrobe make me seem like a slacker. I know this isn’t for everyone.
Is downshifting right for you? Here’s a question or three to consider:
1) Are there enough hours in the day? Is your family time spent with one eye on prime-time and the other with whatever work you have open on your laptop? Are your Sundays in any way relaxing? Do you wish they were?
2) Is what you are doing right now in any way resemble what you thought life would be like? Understanding that life throws you curveballs all the time, would the 19-year-old you have any respect for today-you?
3) How many novels have you written the first ten pages of? How many conversations have you had about knocking down the east wall and building an addition? You bought that shell of a 69 Mustang Shelby that has been sitting in the garage forever, when are you taking me for a spin in it?
Basically – where does the satisfaction in your life come from? If it isn’t your 9-5, your chosen career or profession, then it is time to change. If you want more time to do what you want, then downshifting may be the thing for you.
So, let’s get started:
Step 1: There is no step 1. In fact, there are no steps. There is no direct path between where you are now and the subtle bliss that comes with downshifting. If there were, you would not be reading this because everyone would just know how to go about it.
Another question: Where is your time going?
I used to think that having an active social life was the most important thing in the world. Heaven forbid if there were a Friday night I was at home. People were out there! I needed to go talk with them and convince them I was worth their time! Parties! Bars! Drinking and activities of a questionable nature! It all seemed really important even though it rarely resulted in anything worthwhile.
Between the social life and the job (I was an 8-5-er then) I had absolutely no time to get anything written.
Downshifting is a realization that you can have a great life without spending a lot of money. When you don’t spend a lot of money, then you don’ t need to make a lot of it either. This isn’t like a board game with instructions, this is more like a challenge with a goal and a few principles.
Your goal: more time for you. The principles: doing so without driving yourself into the ground or aleinating the ones you love. Got it? Good.
Now Go!
Not so easy, is it? I’m guessing right about now you are feeling some kind of anxiety. You’re asking a million “but what if” questions. Either way, tomorrow morning you’re probably going to work. The difference? You pack a lunch with things you want to eat rather than spend some money on the outside chance that the restaurant your coworkers go to has something you like. This is, after all, about you.
Maybe you come home from work tomorrow and think about the monthly bills you pay. Spending less means earning less means working less. Maybe you call up the cable company and settle on a Netflix subscription. Maybe you cut your Netflix and figure out where you buried your library card at.
Little by little the money you were spending is money you have saved and eventually you have the idea that maybe your boss will offer you less responsibility. Yes, that’s right. Maybe you tell him that you can do better work on a fewer number of things rather than being stressed out over an endless to do list.
Or maybe you offer to telecommute a few days a week. Or work half days in the office. Or you outsource your menial tasks to an intern desperate for something to fill out their resume with.
Or, depending on the relationship, you tell him to shove the job up their collective asses and walk out.
Again, this is not a definitive guide. You’ll have to assess yourself to see what is realistically possible (not easy, but possible). Downshifting starts with asking yourself the right questions and then actually doing something about them.
Maybe you have settled into your downshifted lifestyle rather nicely. Now that you’ve arrived, don’t forget why you’re here. Spend time with the family, work on that car, write the book, do something great for yourself. Simplify and find satisfaction where you didn’t even think to look before.
Are you worried about your friends abandoning you? Now that you are the person who isn’t bothering with the usually-expensive “night on the towns” that were organized every week, are you going to dissapear from contact lists? If that’s the case, were they really the friends you wanted?
Things I’ve discovered: It’s pretty great when friends dine at my place. Decent food, cooked with care, served up and eaten with a few bottles of wine. Maybe we’re around the dining table, maybe in the picnic table in the garden. Either way, we aren’t distracted by crappy jukeboxes or other people raging on a night out. It’s just us and the conversation. And the wine.
read moreDownshifting Part 2 | Dave, Downshifted
This is part 2 of my 3-part series on downshifting. Miss the first one? Check it out here.
The first leg of my downshifting adventure was more or less thrust upon me. When you first learn of your unemployment you stop at the store on the way home for a really good bottle of whiskey and then you tell yourself that’s it, there will be no more redundancies. You were a redundancy, which is why you were laid off, fired, furloughed, whatever the case may be.
I didn’t ever think that by becoming less of a consumer, I would be more of a producer. It would have been really nice had I come to this realization a lot sooner.
Learning to relax at one of Denver's many beaches.
Before I learned that I could become a producer, I became a panicker. (as in, one who panics. Why this isn’t a real word yet is beyond me). I panicked about finances – where the next ones are coming from, how long the current ones will hold out, what borderline-illegal things I could be doing in order to supplement them. Eventually the truth of the common American hits home: what you are able to do is related directly to the kind of cash you have. We were raised with this idea, it just sort of floated around, and as the economy dwindles the accepted truth is quickly becoming a crushing realization.
In February of 2010 I was laid off. I had a few residuals from shameful, lust-induced literature I had written that were keeping me afloat. I was sending out dozens of resumes a day and replying to just about every job posting I could find that had anything near what I wanted to do or even things I could figure out how to do. I spent hours every day on the job hunt and things were very, very slow to come back. I finally managed to land a contract gig in June which was dependent on the company’s ability to solidify their own contract with the people who were paying them. After four days of training (paid, thankfully) they informed me their contract didn’t come through, and therefore I was once again a redundancy.
No whiskey was acquired this time, probably because I was cut at 8 in the morning.
After getting kicked numerous times in the head, it still didn’t dawn on me that I needed to figure something out. Dozens of job interviews and months later I still didn’t have much cash coming in. My paranoia limited the amount of cash I had going out. I did what I could to keep up appearances, maintained a few routines to keep my sanity in order. The crushing realization was still there: broke was on the horizon.
In February we attended the Garden and Home show – a huge trade show which takes place in Denver each year to get folks excited about the coming, warmer months, to get started on the home improvement products, and to sell all of those awesome things advertised on late night television. And, of course a few local, legitimate purveyors of the garden. From the legit, we purchased a selection of locally harvest seeds and started them indoors.
Coincidentally, it was about this time that I learned the second side of downshifting: I needed to slow the fuck down.
I had a lifetime of near-instant gratification to blame. It needed to be delivered now. Replies needed to be received ten minutes ago. The pizza should arrive before I even pick up the phone to order it. I wanted the best technology, the fastest internet, the quickest turnaround imaginable. And for what? Everything was speeding along and I was running along side it and, surprise surprise, I wound up exhausted from it all.
You know what doesn’t go really fast? Germination.
Vegetative growth. Gardens grow at the speeds they were meant to grow at. And there is very little you can do to change that.
You can add all of the soild amendments and Miracle-Gro in the world, but your plants will only do their dance as fast as they damn well please. We planted tomato seeds in Feburary and we didn’t even see the startings of actual tomatoes until the end of June. And those were just tomatoes. Something that can be sliced up and eaten in a matter of seconds.
Funny how something so simple can change your perspective.
Many of the testimonies of downshifting I have read are largely from people who have altered their work schedule, visited the office fewer days a week, took less work home on the weekends. They downshifted to reduce the anxiety they felt from having so much work. I had to come at the realization from the other direction: I needed to downshift from the anxiety that comes with not having enough work.
Consuming less is at the core of downshifting. However, I avoid taking the traits of an acestic monk in order to do so. As the garden has progressed, I reduced the number of late nights with exorbitant restaurant and bar tabs during the week. Fewer movies means more books. The social engagements I pick are worthwhile, meaningful, and respectful of both my time and theirs.
The income and work may still be uncomfortably low, but the reward of slowing down makes it all worthwhile.
Now I spend at least an hour or two every day in the garden. Tending to the plants, watering, weeding, weeding, weeeeeeding, planning out the next phase of plantings, repairing fences, and pruning vines.
And harvesting. And eating what I pick.
It may have taken months to grow, but it always tastes better.
Once I started planting and slowing down, things more or less have started to fall into place. Consuming less, and enjoying consuming less, means I’m not having to drag in huge incomes every month just to stay afloat. This means I keep to doing what I’d like to be doing: writing. The clients are scattered, as are the paying projects. However, I rarely have to rush to be anywhere. My wardrobe is mostly limited to the clothes I get dirty when I’m out playing with my plants.
Because I get to write more, the stories I create feel a little fuller. I spend a lot more time with them. They are my recreation, the hobby which becomes a craft. I get to spend more time with this here blog, interacting with those who read it and those who also write about the wide world of real food and simple living.
The question stands: could I ever shift up again?
In the next installment I spill out the definitive guide on how to downshift your lifestyle. Read it here.
read moreDownshifting Part 1: What is Downshifting?
When driving, there comes a point when the revolutions per minute (RPMs ) your car is outputting are no longer being used effectively. To better use the high revolutions you shift into a lower gear to gain more control of the power your car is producing.
Or, better yet, you could just get out and walk.
Ever heard, or used, the expression “It feels like everything is moving a million miles a minute!”?
You know, THOSE days
This is basically where the principles behind the downshifting lifestyle come from. We are currently living in a world where everything moves fast. With every year comes a new peice of technology which allows us to go faster and faster. The cultural and personal RPMs are through the roof – we feel like we are racing even though many of us don’t seem to be going anywhere. Each day we are presented with faster networks and better drugs and more elaborate options to pack in more and more stimuli and distractions into our day. In order to keep up with the trends many of us are working harder and putting in more hours than ever just to keep up even if we aren’t necessarily enjoying the ride.
When does it stop? Can it stop? It can, whenever you want to. It starts with a simple question: how do you define success?
***
When I took up gardening this year, I had very little idea of what I was doing. I took dozens of trips to the local libraries and poured through countless resources on how to effectively grow and cultivate my own food, how to live simpler, ways to conserve and reuse products that actually work and aren’t entirely crazy. It was in these books that I first started reading about the subcultural movement called “downshifting.” A lifestyle defined by a person’s ability to enjoy their lives more while having fewer things.
The idea of downshifting has been around for centuries. Thoreau moved off into the woods to escape “quiet lives living in desperation”. Recently the movements brought on by anti-consumerist groups have shifted from refusing to purchase in order to “damn the man” to not buying in order to improve one’s lifestyle by gaining a deeper understanding of what it means to “have”, “own” and to be satisfied. By consuming less you find there is less of a need for money. Less money means less hours you need to put into a job which results in more time for yourself and the things you actually want to do.
The catch? What is it you want to do? Many hobbies have financial obligations to them. We work for paychecks in order to pay for what we do when we aren’t at work. Therefore, the hobbies a downshifter has are not only cheap, but are satisfying enough to validate not having a full time job to pay for them.
***
There are essentially two varieties of downshifting: one where you keep your job and one where you don’t. In John Drake’s ”Downshifting” several methods are outlined on how to approach your employers and convince them to provide you with less responsibility, fewer hours, or allow you to work from home a few days a week. Further on, he presents the ideas in such a way where your coworkers and supervisors wont think of you any less for doing so. His book is geared towards those who find themselves in high profile, high stress positions who might be looking for an extra Friday or two to go fishing or golfing with. In essence – more time for yourself.
The other type of downshifter is not so much concerned with the amount of leisure time they have. Instead, they focus on how they can reduce their footprint on the community around them. These are the people who not only take on jobs with lesser responsibility, work less, and do what they want more. These downshifters do more to provide for themselves. They might work 40 or 60 hours a week, but that is usually in the garden or working on wares to sell at fairs. Like freelancing, but with customers instead of clients. They work less and buy less and provide for themselves more.
Downshifing
Either way one chooses to downshift, the principle is the same: there are things beyond work which you find more important and are willing to sacrifice and cut back in other areas of your life in order to devote more attention to them.
Of course, what would a subculture be if not to have many critcisms against it? Many have gone so far to suggest that living a downshifted life is selfish. Being more concerned about your own lifestyle than you would be about supporting economies. The way I see it, the economy we have is supporting the habits we have developed. The more we buy the more resources factories use, the more labor they have to employ, the more costs they incurr and the better marketing needs to be figured out in order to sustain their role in the economy. Furthermore, who is forcing anyone to buy anything at all?
Today a lot of people are accepting a more frugal way of life because of the state of the economy. Does the economy move to the state of the people? Or should the people conform to the economies?
Is downshifting for you? The first question is simple: how do you define “success”? If you like promotions and constant accolades from your coworkers, then probably not. But if you actually enjoy time outside of the office and find satisfaction in anything other than work, then maybe it is time to stop swimming up stream and going with your internal flow?
In the second part of the downshifting series I discuss a few results I’ve experienced while experimenting with downshifting my own life.
read more
