FB memories recently showed me this post from four years ago. It fit in with a conversation I had with a guest. It was a conversation that I found very upsetting. I have been letting the conversation and my reactions simmer in the back of my mind for a couple of days now, trying to make sense of it all.

It takes nearly an hour to bring people up to Basecamp from town. I have kind of a spiel that I’ve put together to tell guests a bit about history, local animals and plants, local economy and jobs, and the way that life can be different up here in interior Alaska. Each trip is different because of what catches the attention of a given guest. This couple focused on the dry cabin aspect and what that entails.

The husband asked about how much land costs and what restrictions there might be. How do you get started, etc. I explained some of my journey and why I left a good paying job that made me miserable, and tried to explain some of the things that have made this possible, especially the mindset. The wife told me how I should have done my job back driving bus and at one point very passionately told me that “not everyone can do what you have done! Some people are trapped!”

Some people are trapped. Trapped by circumstances. Trapped by the fact that they have children that they can’t bring themselves to pull out of a school where they are bullied and abused by the other kids. Because if they aren’t in school how will they be properly socialized? Trapped by income limits. Trapped by dysfunctional relationships? Trapped by their own ideas of how the world works and how you should submit to the system, even though it makes you so miserable you don’t want to drag yourself out of bed to do it another day, but you have to because what about the children?

I get it. As the old FB post above hints at I spent a long time feeling trapped. I had no idea how I could do anything different. I saw only the limitations surrounding me. I could not imagine any other way, but I was desperate for something different. My life at that time was doing its best to destroy me, and for a while it came close.

I looked for inspiration in many places. I listened to podcasts to learn about how to create a farm business, how to manage money and create wealth on a normal income. I heard about possibilities outside of the beaten path from people who had found their own version of success that fed their souls instead of destroying them. I dug in and kept trying to figure out what I really want in life. The post above is an early version. Now I summarize it by saying, “I want to live with the seasons and I want to be able to hibernate.” I’m still working out what that means, but I have a feeling that it will shift through the years as I have new experiences. Right now I just want to make enough money to live on and build my cabin. I have options that I never saw before. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s happier than it was 4 years ago.

To answer the idea that people are trapped, I just want to say this: yes, you are in a cage. It is made of expectations and debt, materialism and keeping up with the Joneses. You have been socialized by school to put up with abusive work environments just so you can have a paycheck to keep it all afloat and not disappoint your family and friends. But it is a flimsy cage. The bars are weak and spaced far apart. You can escape any time you choose. It all starts by deciding you want something better. Then you make a plan. You spend a couple of years dismantling your cage and one day you walk away from it. It only ever existed in your mind anyway.

If you look for reasons to not succeed you will always find them. If you look at people who succeeded despite all the reasons they shouldn’t, you will find them as well. Life is never completely comfortable. So you need to decide what kind of discomfort you can put up with in order to find the life you can be comfortable with.

I chose to leave a reliable $60k/yr income and a four bedroom, really nice home so that I can have the chance to live in an RV in the extreme cold, using an outhouse with no roof. The trade-off is that my soul feels free. I am happier than I have been in years, and I feel better day by day. I have a job I can go to without crying the entire commute.

Am I lucky? Maybe. But only because I found new choices and made myself step out and do something different. It was terrifying to buy the plane ticket to come visit Alaska for the first time. It was terrifying to actually purchase my property up here. It was scary to apply to seasonal jobs that paid half of my income rate at Trimet. But once it all started coming together I felt a peace with everything. Only my bank balance regrets leaving Trimet.

I don’t know if that guest realized that her words were like knives, twisting in some old wounds, but after pondering my reactions I came to two conclusions. One, I’m glad for it. I feel like some old pain has drained from me that wouldn’t have without this interaction. And Two, she wants something better in her life but she feels trapped. I tried to explain to her how I got here. I tried to encourage her to take tiny steps and see outside of whatever barriers she thinks are there. I truly believe that people can do whatever they set their minds to. I hope my words set hope in motion for her. In the meantime I hope that the beauty of this place helps heal the wounds in her soul.

I’m happy here. This is not an easy place to live and I know it isn’t for everyone. My greatest hope is that with this blog telling my story I can inspire other people to find what makes them happy and take the steps to improve their lives. If anything I say or share does that for you then let me know. I want to see more people living well.