Dream Life

By: Misty Murph'Ariens

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I find myself in a rather unique circumstance.  I am living my dream life.  The only thing is, I wish more people could be living their dreams too.
Many people are, through lack of encouragement, being steered passively by life's happenings, and consequently are not achieving their personal goals.  It seems that many people don't really even know what their personal goals are.  You can ask, “What would you wish for if you could have anything in the world?”.  Most answer, “Win the lottery.”  And then..?  Well, quit the jobs they hate and then...? They don't know.  One thing I have learned is if you don't know what your dreams are, you can't live them.  Well, I admit, I had a similar dream.  I worked the job in the city to pay for the house that I didn't need and after all the frivolous expenses to make life more livable, where was I at?  The same place I started.  I wanted more.  It wasn't that I didn't want to work.  In fact, I am inordinately fond of work, especially hard work.  It was just that I couldn't see any satisfaction in working ten hours a day at a job that I didn't enjoy so that I could afford the latest fashions from Walmart.  I also didn't think that I was living up to my potential or making a positive contribution to the world. I wanted to have the time to be the person I wanted to be—time to spend with my loved ones, time to read, to write, to paint.  I wanted to be a renaissance prince—to know a little about everything so I could know what dreams to pursue.  Since I don't play the lottery, I thought to myself instead, what can I do without? What do I really need? Well, I figured, I need a place to live, I need to eat...and...not much else.  If I had a property in the country, I could live there and grow my own food, make what I needed from materials found thereon and generally 'live off the land'.  It seemed a noble yet humble life.  (Fortunately, it seems my husband was made to order, so he had the same dream life in mind.)   Just after we moved off-grid, my dad sent us a book called 'Back to Basics'.  We call it 'Pretty Much Everything Misty and Bryce Wanted to Know How to Do'.  It shows how to build your own house, churn butter, raise chickens, knit, make sauerkraut, you know, the good stuff.  (I didn't say we weren't weird).  Each chapter inspired us to go out and find more books dedicated to each subject.  After we learned all we could, we started to give our new knowledge a try.  As it turns out, learning all the practical skills I wanted to know allows us to do almost everything ourselves.  It saves a lot of money not having to hire professionals and generally saves time as well. It is a lot more empowering  and entertaining, I find, than earning the money to pay the professional, then watching TV as they do the work. (For an endearingly quaint book on the subject, read 'How to live on nothing'.) First, we began to grow vegetables. Then, we built our house. Next, we tried chickens. Okay, we thought, we're doing good, so we got a draft horse. (No fairy tale, back to the Earth life is complete without a horse and buggy to get around in).  Then the horse needs a companion, enter the dairy cow.  She comes with a bull calf but there's still more milk than we need, so we get the pigs.  One thing leads to another, and you find yourself living in a mud house weaving a basket from marsh reeds, while your husband makes cheese.  Dream come true.