Living in a container
You pay a little rent
You don’t even know the time
But you don’t mind

Living in a shipping container or two

If you know deep down inside that things need to change then it’s simple: you need to change. If you don’t then later you deal with the consequences of your inaction. It’s like you are thrown up a challenge – a stream to cross. But you might get your feet wet so you decide – no not now. Too much going on. I have to drive across town to pick up special thingy, or take the dog for a massage, or that cake is just so delicious – yum, that extra drink – I really need it. So at the next crossing the stream becomes a small river, and then further up it becomes a larger one and so on.

But how do we know when to make the change. We don’t really. There never is a perfect time. You can intellectualise it all you like. Do a cost benefit analysis (who seriously does those?) So ultimately it comes down to a knowing feeling about your life. This is a natural fusion of your calm, settled mind and intuition. It’s how you truly feel about your life or your body or whatever. And I am not talking about day to day emotional changes but the deep seated feeling that you know change is required. You need to get healthier, need more prosperity, more creativity. You need to relax and have time out. You need to get rid of a toxic relationship. Whatever is persistently niggling at you (or even screaming at you).

Several weeks ago I had a scary emotional release. We became homeless. By choice. We sold our wonderful property and are on the move. We wanted a fresh adventure and new experiences. A stint at wanderlusting. I have always been a homely sort of person so it was a tough decision to finally enact. But deep down we knew we had to do it. Some were surprised, others were not.

But what surprised me was my reaction to finally leaving. In the lead up I thought I prepared myself emotionally fairly well. But during the first week of our new life I erupted with tears and depression. I was expecting a reaction to the change but the force of emotion knocked me about. I called up a friend (who actually is a psychiatrist) and he said take it easy, don’t make any decisions about anything and relax into the place you are staying. Focus on that. I kept thinking about what he said and it helped me immensely.

But now we are on a more exciting and interesting path. We are not just throwing everything up in air and seeing what lands. We do have a plan. We are housesitting and experiencing Airbnb (that’s the shipping container above) and feeling our way with a view to buy a property some time next year. Several weeks before our change I wrote an article on letting go in life and taking risks. I think it was to help me adjust to this new adventure. I received a lot of feedback as people could relate to being either a river dweller or bank dweller or swinging between the two.

So in the words of a famous Indian man: Be the change you want to see in the world.

The office in The Container

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