This week the Minimalist community asked what our top three priorities are. It's an interesting thought experiment. I usually won't respond to challenges like this because I hate committing. What if my top three change? What if I'm held to account? After slapping myself and realising no one cares nor will read this post because everyone's so freaked out about the Hive price rather than the real value of the blockchain, I rearranged the Tetris blocks of my mind and had a wee bit of a think.

Love

Sometimes you need to feel first and think second - like there's a difference, hah! Our minds rely on feedback from the heart and gut after all. But though my bank balance worries away in the background, it's my relationship to my husband that matters a lot to me.

We're about to move into a tiny house, which is where we started after all, albeit on wheels. When we start feeling concerned it's too small, we remind each other what we need - each other, and a place to call home.

^{Our tiny Land Rover home, 2020. Living big for us is often living small - and we're at our happiest in small homes.}

Everything else is a distraction. Spend too much time focussing on work and how much money you've got and what happens to your marriage? The more we're married, the more we consider each other above all other things. I always think of that photograph of otters drifting in the water holding on to each other so they don't drift away, or at least that's how I anthromorphise it.

A Home to Weather the Storm

Though we're moving to a smaller house, that doesn't mean we can't have a sustainable garden with fruit and vegetable trees, and chickens, of course. There's a lot you can grow in a small space, and I rejoice in the small house because it means my garden is bigger. Less stuff definitely doesn't mean growing less.

I was really pleased to find my neighbour is also into sustainable food gardening. I find as the world gets crazier and we have all these disturbing weather patterns, we need to focus more on pooling our resources to grow our own food. Worse comes to worst, I think the neighbour and I might work together even more diligently on shared produce. It makes no sense, for example, for me to grow garlic if he is or vice verse. I'm hoping we can put our heads together for this.

^{The beginnings of our small but big garden}

Though we want to grow more, minimalist techniques still come into practice. Scouring online marketplaces for second hand compost piles, buying seedlings from locals for gold coin donations instead of mass grown seedlings from Bunnings, making my own compost from seaweed and other free resources, and so on.

This also means a minimalist wallet mentality, which brings me to my third priority.

Financial Security

I'm not talking about working til I'm 65 or investing or having a huge portfolio of crypto, though my BTC fund is just about reasonable, if not enough for retirement. I just don't want to do fucking 'paid' work. I don't think I'm suited to it, and my rebel self thinks there's better ways to be part of society and contribute to it.

We've both quit our ongoing jobs because we just think life is bigger than that. Our retirement fund is very small. But then we think life is short, and we don't want to spend our life working jobs we don't like.

So the only thing to do is reframe everything so we feel we have enough. Pay the bills, have a little put aside for travel, work casually, and don't overspend. This is probably enough to send other people into a massive meltdown but I don't know how else we can survive. Our health and our relationship just seems more important.

It does seem that most of life is about shaving things away. Less is always the answer. Less work, less stress, less outgoings. Whenever I think I need more, it always comes back to my priorities, which really haven't changed much over the years, truth be told. It's the only way I can see to have a happier life - to be less concerned with all the stuff.

It's a truth I've held close most of my life - living small means living bigger.