Originally published in July 2013.
I KNOW SOME OF YOU READ MY BLOG for its entertainment value, but I think many more of you are here because you are at a crossroads in your life. For many of you it is an economic crossroads. First you lost your jobs, then your savings, maybe even your home. Many are left feeling hopeless and terribly unsure of their future. Then you heard about vandwelling, and that brought you a glimmer of hope. Here was a whole new way of life that could not only solve your economic problems, but possibly some of your other problems as well. But it goes so much against the grain of everything you’ve been taught and totally contradicts the American Dream. How can you make that radical a change in your life?
Others of you are at another sort of crossroads: a crossroads of purpose and meaning. Life is going along basically okay but you are still discontent with your life. Shouldn’t there be more to it than this? Isn’t life about more than going to work, buying stuff, watching TV, and then going to work again to buy more stuff? “Why aren’t I happier than I am?” You feel a need for a change but a change to what? More importantly, how can you throw away everything you’ve ever known and just take a leap into the unknown?
Like many of you, I have stood at both of those crossroads and found making real change was terribly unpleasant and difficult for me. In working through that crossroad and making profound changes in every single area of my life, there was one single lesson that made possible every other change:
You can only change in proportion to how willing you are to give up your old ideas. Total change, requires totally giving up your old ideas.
I found that if I kept one foot in the past, in my old ways of thinking, I couldn’t truly embrace a new way of life. To borrow a phrase from gambling, I had to go “all in!” The ties to my old thinking had to be severed. Because in truth, none of them were my thoughts, they were all brainwashed into me from childhood.
I’d like to tell you my story and how that worked for me. As you read my story, I know you can’t walk the same path I did, it was uniquely mine. But you can adopt the same principle of being willing to give up your old ideas. If you will, I think you will see positive change in your life.
I’ve never been a happy person, but I was making it through life the best I could. By my 30’s I had given up on the idea of being happy; it just was not an option for me. I was only trying to do what I was told to do and get through life with as little suffering and as best I could. When I turned 40 my life fell apart. I was going through a divorce and I was miserable and hopeless beyond words. There was simply nothing for me to do but accept a life of misery and endure it as best as I could until I found the sweet release of death.
One day I was talking to a friend about my problems and he suggested I go with him to an AA meeting; he thought I would relate to it. That seemed totally bizarre to me because I didn’t drink and had never been drunk in my life, not once! Nor had I ever used an illegal drug of any kind. How could I fit in at an AA meeting? But he was a wonderful guy and I admired his story (he had been a drunken, drug addict living on the streets and had been in and out of mental institutions). He said at AA his whole life had changed and today he was literally a different person. He told me the same thing could happen for me. I loved the idea of being a different person! The person I was had totally fucked up his life and was a total failure as a human being. I had nothing to lose so I agreed to go.
As I sat in my first meeting, for the first time in my life I felt like I belonged. I heard people telling my story (all the details were different, but the feelings were all the same). But their stories had a happy ending and mine was still mired in misery. They had “something” and I wanted it. I decided at that first meeting I was willing to go to any length to get what they had. I asked my friend to be my sponsor and committed to do anything he asked of me. We worked the 12 Steps together and it was the hardest, most painful thing I have ever done. And then something amazing happened, just as my friend had promised, I was changed. Little by little, miracle by miracle, I became a different person.
One of the guiding principles of AA is that we have to be willing to give up our old ideas totally. The best thinking and reasoning of every addict ultimately led him to his total failure as a human being. So what part of that thinking should he keep? Some of my old thinking might be good and work, but how could I know? I couldn’t, so if I wanted change my life, I had to totally give up ALL of my old ideas. Here is what the AA literature says about how to get results changing your life:
Some of us have tried to hold onto our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.
Today, that sentence is the guiding principle of my whole life. I needed results, so my old ideas had to go. As I worked through the Steps and then walked through recovery I discovered over-and-over again that if I clung to my old ideas, things generally went badly, but without exception if I simply let them go and tried a whole new path, things went well. Slowly but steadily I let go of all my old ideas. I found that willingness to change my thinking had to be carried into every area of my life: religion, politics, relationships, family, work, everything! In fact, unless I applied new thinking to every tiny aspect of my life, none of the changes I had made would become permanent.
Nothing was sacred and I assumed everything I believed was wrong unless it could be proved to be true, and even then only after it had stood the test of time.
At the same time that I started going to AA, I moved into a van. The two worked together to change me. Going to AA changed the inside of me, but living in a van changed the outside of me. It opened my eyes to see that there could be a way of life that was entirely different than the one I had been living. In fact it was not only different, it was far better. Then five years ago I started living in my van in nature and spending most of my time on public land. Nature deeply and profoundly changed me in ways beyond words. My eyes opened to the horrors of what mankind was doing to each other and to the earth. As I looked at my past and all the things I had been taught about life and how I should live it, I decided every tiny bit of it was wrong.
The longer I lived in a van, and began to think my own thoughts, the more I realized that everything I had been taught about how to live was a lie. The American Dream was a lie. Capitalism was a lie. Any way of life that is built on constant growth is doomed to failure and is at its core an incredibly destructive force that must be fought against. At its core, our society is very, very sick and I could not live my life by it any longer.
“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti
If you will open your eyes, and start to think your own thoughts with your own mind—I have no idea what conclusions you will reach—they may be totally different than mine. But I do know one thing, they will be your own and not someone else’s.
“In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.”— Charles Lindbergh
Sounds a little like my situation. My husband passed in May and now I’m living with my daughter. I don’t know how to actually live in my car. I need friends on your group to help me out on ideas and such.
Ironic I was thinking this morning along those very thoughts, Bob. I’m into my 5th year of living alone after loosing my wife, 4 of which in a 13′ Scamp. I have never been more at peace with life and treasure each day. No longer bound by societal demands, I have been able to truely explore not only my inner self but also nature. The world is a beautiful place once one removes the “old ways” of thinking and replaces them with positive visions. Ones last thoughts as we transition into what ever lays ahead are not of how much stuff we had, but rather our memories of family, friends, and beautiful sunsets.
Hi Trina
I’m single and 72 years old and live in a van. i write about van life here…graycampervanwriter@substack.com
I found moving from place to place while staying in state parks are the safest and most affordable. hope this helps.
Trina, this blog, Bob’s book and his YouTube channel, and the community you join, will be all the resources you’ll need to transition to this new life.
Also the Homes On Wheels Alliance (HOWA) linked in the site menu above.
Hi Trina, me too. I have an SUV I’m trying to figure out how to build out and stuff. No space no skills no tools! Bobs videos are very helpful and this community is very helpful and supportive. Best of luck, to you!
Hi Kelli-
Check out SUV-rving on YouTube (he also has written a book) for lots of SUV specific ideas. Best wishes!
You can live in a car and it is fun. I bought a rebuilt Toyota Prius for $5,500 and traveled north in the summer and south in the winter. Toilets, meals, showers all easily dealt with. Want to travel with others just go to an RTR of contact Mr. Bob Wells CheapRVliving.com Not hard and your life will be so much better.
Capitalism is a lie, constant growth is a lie. Who pays the most taxes? The lower class. Who doesn’t pay any taxes? The 1%. Who gets accused of milking the system? The poor on welfare who get a drop in a barrel. Who really milks the system? The 1% on corporate welfare who get overflowing barrels.
Want to know who the American dream is for and how they get it? Read the historian Howard Zinn’s book ” A People’s History of the United States”.
My conclusion Bob is that you helped save my life along with me. I thought when I had lost it all again that suicide was my only choice, or life on the street. What a kick in the head. Then I found your videos on YouTube some time ago and saw a different way. By some miracle of faith I was surprisingly rescued and restored economically, albeit with some new lessons from you on how to protect myself, even from myself. Outside my door is my 2006 LA West purple Scoobie Doo Van and next to it is a Coleman 6 person Instant tent filled with a cot and a Jackery and a stove and My Buddy. If and when the miseries ever return I will fill up and head to the Mesas. Till then I am looking forward to a nice trip down to the Florida Keys. Thank you Bob for helping to turn me on to some options that I never knew existed just outside my door.
Bob, thanks for all that you do.
Hi Bob. I’ve followed you for 10 years and finally decided that now is the time to live my van life dream. I bought a 87 Plymouth Voyager LE with 79K orig miles from the 2nd owner for $1500 when I turned 70 back in Feb of last year. Everything works but the air conditioner, and is in “like new condition.” I bought a thin twin metal frame off of Amazon, added a mattress and turned the passenger seat around, glued linoleum to a piece of 1/2 ” plywood, and replaced the headliner. The fuel economy is not stellar at approx 17 mpg but I can live with that. Thanks Bob for living your dream and showing the rest of us that we can live ours as well.
Thank you. Well said. As I grew and became more me, I found I could not go back. So scary, then it became scarier to not go forward.
I am at the cross roads. I needed this message. I am saving this post and rereading it. Thanks!
An inspiring article.
Good article Bob, except for one thing.
Capitalism is not the problem. We don’t have free market capitalism. We have fascism.
If you own your own property – a vehicle and it’s accessories, that’s your capital, that allows you to avoid homelessness. If you have your own business, you’re a capitalist. I charge fair prices and have no desire to “expand” my business. I treat people right, so I get enough business to maintain my home on wheels. As a Christian, I seek to build up treasure in heaven, so live as frugally as I can.
Greed is the problem. Consumerism is the problem. Keeping up with the Jone’s is the problem.
Crony capitalism / corporate socialism a/k/a fascism is the problem. Corporations, and politicians who take their money, and who violate their oath to the U.S. Constitution have killed, or rather severely shrunk, the American Dream. They’ve squeezed prosperity from us with economic depression by design, and in the last 2 1/2 years have blatantly attacked us with biological, psychological and economic warfare.
http://www.issuesoutline.org/#economy
http://www.issuesoutline.org/#covid19fraud
So honest people have to adapt by lowering expectations for that dream, unless, and until peoples’ hearts are changed to stop being so greedy. We need to work on the local level, from the ground up, to restore government as intended by our Founders. We need to put government back in the small box where it belongs, so it leaves us alone.
We need to defy tyrants. With their insane, lawless orders we must never comply.
“When the People fear government, there is tyranny. When government fears the People, there is Liberty.” Thomas Jefferson
AA saved my life. I am definitely a changed person. My story is that I am an alcoholic and will always be one. Living the AA way of life is, for me, my best life!
Best article ever. I am a recovered alcoholic, drug addict. sex addict, etc. I have been alcohol free for 53 yrs, I have also worked the 12 steps for 53 yrs and I believe everyone should work the 12 steps. Your story is amazing, I had to laugh when you said you’ve never been drunk. Thanks Bob!
One of your best ever writings & sharings Bob, thank you! I too have been following your adventures & teachings for over 10 years. Many ideas need to be adapted to our Canadian climates, yet I continue to learn so much. “Necessity is the Mother of Invention”. May the human race wake up sooner than later & fully blossom ?
I could not put this into better words to describe my feelings of my life for the past 60 years. Thank you for showing me I am not crazy and that my view of socierty and the Nomatic life are not out in space as I have been told repetively. Now I just need to put it all into action b4 it is too late.
Some good thoughts here but some extremist ones too. The spirit of rebellion can create more problems than one may expect, so be careful. To say Capitalism is a lie is absurd. Even communist countries have capitalism. Ever seen a Honda or Toyata on the road? In the USA we have the ability to participate in Private Capitalism vs Public Capitalism owned only by a government and controlled by a totalitarian society. This extremist point of view can be construed as “I don’t like options.” In the USA we have far more options than our counterpart socialist and communist countries.
This is so well written; I’m impressed. For most of my life, I have questioned why we do things a certain way and why so many people just accept and go along–because that’s the way it’s done. So, as one who has not blindly followed conventions when they didn’t make sense to me, I appreciate how well you’ve expressed this, including the quotes from others. My husband and I loved road trips and took many together and with our children. Our dream was to get some kind of camping van and take extended trips after retirement. Sadly, his health deteriorated and after years of trying to resolve it, he passed away last year. I have a lot of wonderful memories. I unloaded all but my personal possessions and mementos so I would be free of the responsibility of a home to maintain and extraneous “things” and freer to try new places and figure out what I wanted to do, keeping our dream alive.
I moved a long distance, close to a daughter, in a warm, sunny climate where my husband and i had wanted to move. Then I took a trip alone (within the region, close to numerous national parks) to try it out. I revisited some places we had been to. I have a small SUV that I could sleep in if I didn’t want to bother putting up my tent. (I used hotels sometimes when I couldn’t find a campground, which was common last fall), After six weeks of travel, I signed a lease on a studio apartment in the city, near my daughter. I am trying to figure out what I want to do–down the road–after my lease is up. I would want a larger vehicle; the space of a minivan would enhance my travels, and I am trying to decide if I want to do that and take a very long trip to visit my other two children who are on opposite sides of the country now. It’s exciting to think of the places I have yet to see. I would take my painting gear and paint what I see on my travels. At times, it seems daunting to do it all alone, but then when I read about or remember beautiful places, I feel hungry to experience them. So, I am in the process of trying to figure out my path forward. I like hearing experiences of others. Thank you, Bob, for your thoughtful articles and generous, kind spirit. I have been visiting your site, finding inspiration, for years.
After living much of my life trying to follow the rules, I taught our daughter that different is good. She has lived a more fulfilling life than I did at her age. Please, people, feel free to be different. Be who you truly are.
good article
Thanks again Bob. You are pushing me over the edge into finally doing what I want to do instead of worrying about others all the time. This year I will go to the RTR. As soon as you post the dates.
The previous years, RTR has been the middle two weeks of January.
Thanks Bob you and everyone are always inspirational. Lost my wife (41 years married high school sweethearts) Lost my job 2020 covid. Now retired at 62.Oct 1 my lease is up and I’m hitting the road. I’m living in Albuquerque New Mexico now and own a transit connect bought for camping and my mountain bikes and dirt bike. Look out great southwest here I come! Will check out Quartzsite this winter hope to meet you all wonderful people.
Have you heard of Incredible Tiny Homes in Newport Tennessee. They build 8z16 homes on a trailer for 20k. They can also build the same home off grid for 25k. You may want to check them out in you tube. Incredible Tiny Homes. Randy Jones is the owner and he is making it his goal to make affordable housing for those who want it. Your viewers may find this a good option.
I had absolutely no idea you and I were connected in any way. How wonderful to discover that we are. Someday we’ll sit down and I’ll tell you about my journey.
But for now as I get to know you through your writing, nice to meet you Bob!
Hello.. I am 59 years old, disabled and had no choice but to walk away from my life pack what I thought I would need along with my 2 dogs and move into the forest in a 20 year old Ford Expedition.
I need all the advise any of you are willing to share. I am scared, confused and angry. However I am enjoying the sunsets.
Any advise will be welcomed please. I have no idea what I am doing and how my dogs and I will survive the snowy winter.