When I was in the midst of trying to figure out a way out of my financial situation of living beyond my means, burdened with debt, no savings, no flexibility to do what I really wanted….Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond came to the rescue.
I knew I was in a bit of a jam….
I was frustrated about my inability to get myself out of debt, to live within my means…and mad at myself for even getting myself into such a mess.
Here I was, in my late 40’s – with a big house, hot tub, big lawn, woods, 3 kids, 2 car garage, week-long vacations in fancy houses, etc…with absolutely zero savings (aside from 401k retirement accounts), lots of debt, living paycheck to paycheck in a house I really couldn’t afford.
And then for whatever reason, I came across Thoreau’s Walden Pond.
It was like a light went on. My head practically exploded…it crystalized what had been bothering me.
His words shook me.
They rang true.
They made sense.
It was then that I knew I had to make a change and move in a different direction.
NO – I’m not talking about building a cabin from scratch, marching out into the woods by myself with a borrowed ax and become a hermit.
I’m talking about not living beyond your means. Simplifying your life. Enjoying the simple things in life that cost nothing or little to nothing. Not getting caught up in having the latest and greatest things. Not accumulating “stuff” that I really don’t need. Reducing your expenses so you don’t need to work to simply “maintain” a lifestyle that you think you need.
I’m going to share a ton of quotes below that rang true for me, but I’ll start with a famous quote that I had heard before but never know where it came from.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
Henry David Thoreau – Walden Pond
This was me!
Outwardly, I had just about everything.
- A nice house on almost 5 acres of land
- Big yard – had to mow it with a lawn tractor
- A six-figure job
- Three kids…all doing well (as kids go)
- Nice vacations every year
- Wife, family, friends
But inside….YES – I was desperate!
I felt like I was stuck on a treadmill, mired in debt, no cash savings to speak of.
Let’s be clear…I wasn’t near bankruptcy. However, if my wife or I lost our jobs, we would have been in trouble. We lived paycheck to paycheck…just to sustain this lifestyle.
No matter how much more I made, we just raised our spending to match. Actually, we always spent just slightly more than we made.
I was frustrated and nothing ever seemed to change.
Until I read Thoreau.
I knew then that I had to change after reading some of his quotes.
Below is a list of quotes that stuck out to me.
Take the time to read them. See if any of them ring true to you.
By reading through this list of quotes, it will start to sink in about what Thoreau is trying to tell us.
- Living within your means.
- Finding the true meaning of life.
- Not trying to live to impress others, but to live for yourself.
- Not going into debt.
Find what matters for you!
“I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools: for these are more easily acquired than got rid of.”
“Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born?”
“How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, it’s stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and wood lot. The portion less who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.”
“Men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. They are employed, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.”
“The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do.”
“Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live, that is, keep comfortably warm, and die in New England at last.”
“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”
“No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and un-patched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon. We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches.”
“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. An average house…he must have spend more than half his life commonly…before his will be earned.”
“The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are three such men in Concord.”
“And when the farmer has got his house, he many not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him.”
“Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.”
“While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who inhabit them.”
“Most men appear never to have considered what a house is and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have.”
“Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?”
“Men have become the tools of their tools.”
“This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet.”
“I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.”
“Men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer.”
“Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East – to know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them – who were above such trifling.”
“A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor the time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined.”
“My greatest skill has been to want but little.”
“I am convinced, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.”
“A man is rich in the proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
“As long as possible live free and committed. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.”
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
“Our life is frittered away by detail.”
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three and not a hundred or a thousand.”
“For Sunday is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave beginning of a new one.”
Thoreau inspired me to take action
After reading Walden Pond, it shook me. Here I was, in my late 40’s and it was like I had been reborn (in my mind). Much of what had been bothering me about where I was with my state of affairs was crystalized. I decided I would take action.
I realized that for much of my life, I was climbing a ladder that I had put up against the wrong wall.
I made changes…much of it I’ve described here in my blog posts…with more to come.
What I had previously valued in life, career, status and material things… was not what I valued anymore.
It has taken some time, but I’ve made progress. I’ve eliminated all of my debt. I no longer own that big house. I no longer am looking to accumulate more things.
Am I focused on making money? Yes! But not for simple accumulation of money itself, but to be able to have the freedom to enjoy what remains of my life. To celebrate what truly matters. I’m 50 now. My goal is not to retire when I am too old to enjoy life.
I’ve got some big goals. The changes I have made have started to build their own momentum. It is an exciting feeling to see now where I am and where I am going…to finally understand what I want out of life!
-Glenn