In the first place, why would you want to change to an alternative lifestyle if the one you have now works for you? That is, if you have a permanent job, you earn good money, you own a house, a luxury car, and you can easily support your family with no headaches. The first thing you need to realise about change is that it is traumatic. Any kind of change, no matter how big or small it is, it’s traumatic, even more so if you are the sole provider in your house. Because leading a different lifestyle means change. And what exactly do you mean by an alternative lifestyle? Because that means you lead a lifestyle that is different to the normal way of living.
Leading the normal lifestyle means you have a job, you work for forty eighty hours a week with your weekend off, from seven to four daily. You probably have deadlines to follow every day, you feel exhausted every day when you get home. You don’t want to spend time with your children because you are just too tired, you want to just sit and relax. In front of the TV, of course. Then, you unnecessarily snap at you wife, even though she also works hard at managing your home to make things run smoothly. So, you might have the house, the car and lots of money. But does it give you the satisfaction you need? Don’t you feel that many times, you just want to get away from it all? The car needs a service, the washing machine broke, and the house needs maintenance, the lawn needs to be cut but the lawn mower is also broken. Inflation is up so prices are more expensive, but your salary remains the same. Life is becoming more and more unbearably expensive, but your boss refuses to give you a small raise just to be able to make ends meet.
Returning to the alternative lifestyle, there are many ways to change your lifestyle. You could start your own business where you set your own time limits; you choose how much you decide to draw from your business as a salary. Only, because you have your own business now, you will have to work harder with longer hours to make your business work. I feel the best option is to have a small home based business, because renting office space and workshop space is also expensive. And you want to keep your overheads to the least minimum so that you can live off your business comfortably. So, be wise in your decisions.
There are other ways to change your lifestyle, and here comes the sticky part. You could sell your expensive, time – consuming house for a smaller, cheaper one that is easier to maintain. You could also sell your big, gas guzzling luxury car and buy a smaller car that is lighter on gas and also easier to maintain. People will not let go of their possessions no matter how difficult life is for them, especially if they get so much pleasure from it and the luxury life it offers. But in the end, house maintenance is never – ending and time – consuming, cars rust and constantly needs to be replaced, and in the end, money also means nothing because you could lose it all in a day. And in the end, you must do what you need to do to make life more bearable for yourself and your family, and learn to adapt to your situation.
