The Quiet Resistance to Intentional Living

Once upon a time, living in a dark house with too many rooms, I spent hours researching road nomadism, scrolling through colorful images of happy people in vans, vehicles tucked into breathtakingly remote spots, and tiny living designs. I read articles about the best way to travel, what kind of rig to get, and practical knowledge about living on the road. Some of it was immensely helpful (cheaprvliving.com) and others...well one of the most memorable tips I read was to scatter old shotgun shells around your rig while boondocking so people stay away.

 After almost 4 years RVing, miles of pavement and dirt, and plenty of mishaps, I’ve left the online world of RVing behind. I learned that the wilderness in which you’re supposed to be scaring people away with littered shells is, in fact, one of the safest places I’ve ever lived, so much so that my rig is almost always unlocked, with valuables outside of it. I’ve learned to be able to tell when I know more than an RV mechanic, learned how to drastically conserve essential resources, learned what pretty places on Instagram will inevitably be overrun with tourists. My dream morphed into my everyday life, powered by hundreds of experiences that have taught me something new about the world and about myself. 

But every once in a while, a certain type of RV article will float my way, often passed on by other nomad friends so that we may all laugh at and heckle it. An all-encompassing example of this kind of content is this Kiplinger article: 15 Reasons You’ll Regret an RV in Retirement. It lists shocking, unforeseeable aspects of vehicle life such as “RVs use gas” and ‘living quarters are close.’

Reason #2 might be my favorite: “You’ll spend even more money updating your RV's décor.” It’s true, old RVs can be ugly, with a penchant for dark wood and busy patterns. But the idea that you HAVE to spend money to update your RV to match the latest Instagram aesthetic is wildly offensive. Believe it or not, you CAN survive if not every surface of your rig is white. But even more astounding is this next bit, highlighting some of the expenses a part-time RV couple faced:

“....they changed out televisions, curtains and blinds ($8,000), added a home-grade refrigerator ($350), and bought new recliners and table chairs ($2,000).”

This is amazing because as far as I know, most TVs these days (especially ones that can fit in an RV) are like $200. So what. the. fuck. kind of curtains are these people getting? Ones made out of human skin?  These are eye-watering numbers that at least in my reality, have no basis. These RVers are obviously living on another level of the wealth stratosphere and to use them as an example of typical RV costs is insane. 

(For the record, we did change out some of our RV furniture and sold the recliners our trailer came with for $700, which paid for the couch, side table, ottoman, and desk that replaced them.)

But anyway, I just had to talk about those curtains, so back to the matter at hand. What this Kiplinger article and similar other pieces create is fear. Sure, it’s important to do research and know what you’re generally getting into, and intentional living has its own downsides and challenges, just like every lifestyle. But that’s the key….just like every lifestyle. Following the status quo and doing what everyone else is doing seems less scary because we are social creatures and if everyone else is doing it, it must be the safest option, right?

Why does Kiplinger hate these nice old folks? Look at how much fun they’re having!

But of course, risk is inherent to life and every type of living has trade-offs. There are just socially accepted trade-offs and socially unaccepted trade-offs. If you decide to pursue an alternative lifestyle, you are going down the path less taken and the risks are less understood and thus not socially accepted. And so, people generally have a gut reaction to your weird thing because it’s unusual. And that reaction is usually resistance. 

One of the biggest things that can breathe fear into your own dreams is what other people have to say about them. A funny quirk of humans is that when you tell them your big plans and goals, they often respond with the most terrifying thing possible about said plan. One example was when we told one family friend about hitting the road in an RV, he shared a story about a friend of his who towed a trailer and in a high wind storm, was blown completely off and over a bridge. Terrifying! Now, as an experienced RVer, I am confident that that experience was a freak accident and that's not something I needed to worry about. 

Most people don’t share the scariest thing they can think of out of maliciousness. It may be from a place of a desire to be helpful and provide a warning or advice. But more often than not, it comes from their own sense of fear. It’s okay for people not to want to live your alternative lifestyle…our differences make us all beautiful! But people sometimes let their own fear blossom outside themselves and, like crabs in a bucket, use it to pull back others who might see it realized. 

The disadvantages that come with alternative, intentional living seem extra scary because instead of dealing with the same setbacks as everyone else, yours are different and people can say ‘I told you so’ when they happen. 

Articles like the Kiplinger one are, of course, pumped out for content and clicks. And nothing sells like fear and negativity. No one wants to read a story about someone who went on an adventure and it was all fine and dandy and nothing went wrong. 

But the issue with articles about why you shouldn’t RV or vanlife or whatever the system is railing against is that they shill fear for a particular life choice, as though every other lifestyle doesn’t have its own set of problems. For every black tank horror story with a YouTuber holding their nose in the video thumbnail, why aren’t there just as many about the dangers of backed up toilets in homes? The latter happens more often than the former, but because it’s a more common, socially-accepted issue, it isn’t spun into a general warning about living in houses.

Helpful videos, silly thumbnails

Here’s the truth: If a blank tank is going to stop you from living out your dream, it wasn’t that serious of a dream to begin with.

Again and again, I meet people who have a dream but won’t take the leap because of one reason or another. Their excuses sound logistical, but more often than not, they all come back to that one thing holding them back: fear of the unknown.

Bringing Fear into the Light

The quickest way to combat the fears of others is to find community within your desired intentional lifestyle. Humans are social after all, and if people reject our dreams, we usually still have that innate desire to be understood by someone. 

Photo by Perpetual Moves

One of the most valuable parts of finding a community in RVing was being able to commiserate about the challenges of the lifestyle to those who were personally experiencing it. If we tried that with sticks and bricks folks, the obvious question would be, “why are you doing this to yourself?” The implication being, if you just lived in a nice normal house, all your problems would vanish! 

Talking about lifestyle issues with people in the know not only meant actually solving some of them through communal wisdom, but also the shared understanding that no matter how frustrating living off-grid and in a poorly-made RV can be, it was always going to be the better choice for us than succumbing to mainstream values. Now, within our social group, devaluing the importance of work, valuing experiences over things, being self-sufficient, and stepping out of our comfort zones are the shared values and you don’t have to convince anyone about your life choices. 

Post-Resistance Living

Pursuing intentional living; whether it's extreme minimalism, working as little as possible or retiring early, simple living, nomadism, communal living, homesteading, or any of the plethora of options out there not only has benefits in its own rights, but contributes to the continued ability to push your own limits. While it may not immediately make you a fearless maverick, it’s likely you’ll become more and more comfortable stepping outside the norms and testing boundaries. 

People’s objections to your lifestyle that you might have been alarmed or swayed by before will become less and less impactful as you expand your experience and become confident in your decisions. Once you do one thing that people say is crazy, or impossible, or too expensive, or unsustainable, you’ll realize how many things are given those labels by people who have never tried them. Fear dominates our culture so perversely that once you step out behind that screen of perception, you’ll find a new world waiting for you. It’s just up to you to decide whether you’ll cross that threshold or retreat into the illusion of comfort. Just remember that freedom always demands a little courage.