Becoming Vanaprastha

Approximately 5.5 years ago, I began a journey to explore a minimalist lifestyle and mobile and outdoor living. Aside from during an interstate cycling trip I have been planning; outdoor living was not intended to be a part of my journey. However, due to a variety of reasons, I found myself without a car last fall (Oct. 17, 2024) and began living outdoors.

As this story continues, I will be talking about minimalism and I want to note early on, because there always seems to be some confusion, that minimalism does not equate to cheap living, nor is it solely about living more in harmony with the earth. There are many reasons people choose a minimalist lifestyle. And the way in which people live this lifestyle is as diverse as the people themselves. Minimalist living does not always include outdoor or mobile living. Likewise, not everyone living outdoors or in a vehicle considers themselves minimalist nor are many of them environmentally conscious.

I consider myself a minimalist because I am learning to live with less. I have rid myself of many material possessions. This does not mean I only survive with necessities; however, it does mean I am conscious of what I purchase and the purpose it serves. I no longer want to be weighed down by unnecessary material goods and the need to house them, care for them, insure them, etc. Not buying unnecessary stuff is a constant challenge, especially when it comes to my grandbabies. 😊

Along with minimalism, I am trying to eat less and be healthier. My intent is to be present for myself and others and not be caught up in working to make money only to spend on things I don’t really need and that bring no real value to my life, all while neglecting my health and happiness. Moreover, I am tired of postponing dreams because I am too busy with work and the mundane activities of daily living.

I am working on figuring out how to be more earth conscious as I move through this process. Research shows individuals living a nomadic lifestyle whether on the street, in a vehicle, or staying with friends/family, have a much lower carbon footprint than most. Part of the reason for this is that nomads use shared resources accessible in the community and, due to space concerns, they are typically strategic about what they buy and use. For example, we do not all have our own bathrooms, we do not heat and cool houses/apartments, etc. Also, many nomads largely utilize solar power and tend to use less power and resources in general.

My journey to where I am currently finding myself began years before I realized. I knew I was growing more and more tired and dissatisfied over the years, yet I didn’t really know what I was going to do about it. I really wanted to be teaching yoga, performing massage, leading workshops, and doing coaching work. The problem is, I lacked the confidence/trust in myself to network and market my skills. I also want to sell goods that I create. Unfortunately, nearly all the money I earned went to pay bills and purchase necessities. I have not found myself with the available resources to get merchandise produced that I could market and sell.

I went back and forth fighting myself and what I thought I should be doing only to find myself continually dissatisfied. My weight and health in general would go up and down (mostly up in the long run). I was over 226 pounds at my heaviest. I was sometimes impatient with my children and grew apathetic about the world and the people in it. I projected dissatisfaction with my own life onto other people in my life and the world in general. I withdrew from friendships and isolated myself.

It was 2020 when I first began to realize exactly how destructive my avoidance and coping strategies were. I had been fighting some GI issues for a couple years and, as stress grew in my life, the GI issues got exponentially worse. Some of my health struggles were potentially life-threatening. I grew more and more depressed. I was embarrassed, ashamed. I felt I was letting everyone down. I was failing my kids and grandbaby (I only had one at the time). I viewed myself as a failure. I was failing at being able to live a life based on performing work that did not feed my soul or bring me joy. Doctors wanted to remove my gallbladder and considered removing part of my colon. I was bleeding from places one should not bleed; I could not eat much and what I ate ran through me quickly, I was in pain, unable to work, and lost 60 pounds in less than 2 months.

I refused surgeries and most medications. I knew in my heart my sickness, while very real, was caused by my unhappiness, stress, depression. With the help of my best and longest friend, I was able to access some alternative healing resources, changed to a mostly fruit and chicken diet, and decided I was going to reduce my work to reduce stress. I slowly began to improve and within 3 or so months I was back to feeling much better. A new season began about this time, and I went back to landscaping.

Over the next couple of years, I went back and forth between a couple jobs in social services and landscaping. I was tired of working full-time in social services, yet I have the experience and reputation to make decent money in social services management, so this is where I kept ending up. I liked aspects of being in management, yet my heart is in working directly with people. I enjoyed being able to create new programs, policies and procedures, etc. Unfortunately, I was mainly in management for the money. The same was true for my landscaping business. While I truly enjoying working outdoors with the earth and all that comes from it, my landscaping business was initially intended to allow me the flexibility and income to get my consulting and retail business going.

I thought landscaping would be a good way to generate a decent income, and I had the intention of having something to pass on to my children when they were old enough. As with non-profit management, my focus was on money. I thought I could generate enough income to invest in passion projects and maintain a relatively light work schedule. Long story short… the landscaping business quickly consumed me to the point I was not devoting any time to those things I was most passionate about.

In both situations, it got to the point where it was all just about making money and surviving. I no longer enjoyed social service work, I no longer enjoyed landscaping. I was growing old, tired, and unhappy. For the sake of my health, I needed to find a way to make my passions my work.

The problem is, as I mentioned previously, I lacked the confidence/trust in myself to network and market my skills to be self-employed as a coach/consultant. On the other hand, in social services, I could not make enough money strictly facilitating classes or working in a case manager position that provided opportunities for group facilitation; not to mention I really did not want to be bothered with the mundane parts of case management work. Moreover, I really wanted to do stuff related to personal exploration and healing including yoga, meditation, and more. This was not something that could happen on a regular basis for most non-profits, at least not in a way that would pay me well.

Through a series of events in my life and the lives of those close to me, I went through a few different living situations from 2020 to 2024, including exploring mobile living in 4 different types of vehicles for a total of over 2 and ½ years. In October of 2024 outdoor living became a part of my journey. While I do not intend to continue living outdoors forever, I am enjoying the experience. It can be a challenge to stay warm and dry. I am lucky that I have a couple of resources to get out of the extremely cold temperatures and excessively wet weather for periods of time and sometimes through the night. I must be creative in how I survive and must plan how to complete basic tasks like showering without having to be overloaded with too much baggage at one time.

I have a bicycle with panniers (saddle bags) that allows me to get around a little quicker and easier with more stuff than just walking or relying on the bus. I have a gym membership that provides for my showers, and I work out and do yoga a lot more, because I have more time on my hands and I’m going to the gym regularly for showers anyway so why not work out. While the struggles are real, the joy of not being burdened with certain aspects of life and living (I’ll talk more about this) combined with the joy of waking up and going to sleep outdoors in the fresh air under the open sky, the flexibility in my schedule, nearly unlimited time at the park playing drums, meditating, or just relaxing, and the time to spend working on creative projects and things I’m passionate about far outweighs the challenges.

I now work a part-time job, teach a couple yoga classes (which I hope to expand), and have started taking on coaching and massage clients. I had the opportunity to go to Bali for 2 months from December 7, 2024, to February 6, 2025. I left Cincinnati for Bali with just over $200 in my bank account. I lived outdoors in the cold and snow for the 50 days preceding my departure. While in Bali, I taught yoga regularly, gave a couple Thai Massages, and attended a 300-level yoga teacher training. More importantly, I became consistent and deepened my personal practice. I could say a lot more about Bali, but that will have to wait for another story. Now, I not only exercise regularly, I eat better and I am trying new foods. I am beginning to live and build in a new way as I move forward. It brings me tremendous joy to model this lifestyle and my personal transition for my children. I want them to have the courage to explore, take risks, heal, and find happiness.

I began talking about mobile off-grid living with my children and some friends back in 2018 or so. I did not know exactly how it was going to happen, but I imagined getting some type of remote job once I had a vehicle fully equipped. As I moved towards this goal, a variety of opportunities came up. I transitioned between being self-employed and employed with a couple different organizations over a few years. All this ultimately culminated in my trip to Bali and my decision to live outdoors after losing my vehicle.

As my journey unfolded my dear friend and teacher, Will Brasher of the Cincinnati Yoga School, bestowed upon me the title of Vanaprastha. Ananda.org explains below what this title infers:

Vanaprastha refers to the third of four classically designed ashrams. The stage lasts for twenty-four years from around the age of forty-eight to the age of seventy-two. It is a time for gradual withdrawal from worldly concerns and the sharing of one’s wisdom with others. The other three ashrams of life are brahmacharya (student), grihastha (householder), and sannyas (full renunciation).

During the stage of vanaprastha, one may share the wisdom that one has accumulated in the earlier stages of life. Thus, one serves as a mature counselor. Although the vanaprasthi mostly withdraws from his involvements in the world, he nevertheless remains in the home working for the education of younger people. In the past, vanaprastha referred to a period in which a person prepared for the ultimate renunciation of sannyas by retiring to the forest or a solitary place for meditation.

I was not aware of this philosophy at the time my journey began or even by the time I officially announced my journey as ThisHerosJourney24. In today’s world it is difficult to live out this philosophy to its fullest. Even in India few people practice this approach to life and aging. Yet, this seems like a very healthy philosophy. A philosophy in which one can truly cherish different stages of their life.

I’m realizing at this point; I have not given much detail about my reasons for mobile living and transitioning to a minimalist lifestyle. While this has been a dream of mine for a while, the main impetus for starting when I did was trying to limit my stress to improve my health by significantly reducing how much I was working and learning to take care of myself better. Limiting how much I was working created a drastic decline in income which meant drastically changing my lifestyle.

Even though some changes were drastic, as I already mentioned, they were not foreign ideas to me. I even had dreams in my childhood of living and working in such a way that I could travel and live within a small space with minimal stuff. For a couple of years as a child, I turned a large walk-in closet into my bedroom. It was just big enough for a single bed, dresser, a small table, and a few shelves that were built into the wall. As a teenager, I lived in the basement of the house my family was renting. I remember talking a lot about being an over-the-road truck driver and living in the truck. I’m not going to discuss here the many things through my adolescence and young adulthood that derailed that dream or maybe I forgot that dream as different life paths unfolded. More recently, a couple years before I got sick, I had begun talking to the kids about my desire to live in a vehicle with off-grid capabilities, so I could travel the United States. Even though I was not making the connection, my subconscious was already planting seeds as intuitively my being knew it could not continue as it was.

So, after recovering from my sickness, I transitioned to my first attempt at mobile living in 2021. As I thought about it more, I considered more than half my income went towards rent, utilities, renters’ insurance, and other household expenses. Like over 60% of Americans currently, I have always lived paycheck-to-paycheck. I had grown tired of working my life away to mostly pay bills. However, if I lived in a vehicle with solar power so I could cook, stay cool and warm, and keep electronics charged, I could work half the time and still provide for all my needs. The only difference is I provided for my needs in a vehicle as opposed to in a house/apartment. The other option was to work more and have money to devote to creative projects, travel, and other passions.

I connect with the flexibility of my schedule, greater freedom to spend time in nature, the ability to move around easily, and more often. Another benefit is that it keeps me motivated and active. It is easier for me to go to the gym, attend yoga classes, and do other activities because I don’t have the opportunity to get comfortable in the house and use that as an excuse. The result is I live a more active and healthier lifestyle (including cycling and walking as my regular modes of transportation). I spend more time doing non-compulsory activities like drumming, artwork, meditation, and writing.

Another reason I chose this lifestyle is to model an alternative path that reduces my carbon footprint. While I still have a lot to learn and many changes to make in this respect, I do know my carbon footprint is less than if I was still living the way I used to when occupying a house/apartment and driving a vehicle all over the place. In the following paragraphs, I am going to briefly review nomadic/mobile/outdoor living in general and some of the pros and cons.

For most of us who refer to ourselves as mobile living, living outdoors, as van-lifers, nomads, etc., it was a choice. Many are retired, some are young and trying to save money to buy a house, a bunch are families with small children, and many have pets. We intentionally chose this over other options for a variety of reasons. We have resources including, but not limited to, steady income, rain gear, sleeping gear, cooking gear, often have storage units, and more (typically much more for those living in vehicles of some type). We live normal lives working, eating, sleeping, cooking, going to movies, talking to and visiting with friends, and all the other normal things most people do. We tend to travel more and spend most of our time in parks, restaurants, libraries, and other public places. Our jobs are often remote.

The biggest struggle for an individual or family living outdoors in an urban area is not being able to set up a tent or build a fire. It is difficult to stay warm and dry without some type of shelter, although keeping warm is more doable than staying dry. And without a refrigerator, eating healthily is also difficult unless one has sufficient money to eat at specialty restaurants. I use camping fuel and burners to cook. I have no place to store perishable food items, so what I eat most days is fairly limited to rice, canned veggies, pancakes, and a lot of fruits (especially apples, oranges, bananas, and other items that keep pretty well without refrigeration.

There are places to access electricity depending on where exactly you are and how much money you have. Libraries are always a good option if you are near one and do not cost you anything. Restaurants and retail stores like McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, some Kroger stores, etc. can be good places to get free Wi-Fi and be able to sit for a pretty long period of time (so long as you don’t abuse it) by spending just a few dollars. There are also higher-end places such as McAlister’s and Panera where electricity and Wi-Fi is available, and you can sit for a while. Unfortunately, anything you buy in the cheaper fast-food restaurants, and even many of the more expensive ones, is not good for you. I recommend a combination of the above, and a portable solar power station to charge phones, earbuds, and basic electronics. In full disclosure, I make this recommendation having not yet been able to acquire my own portable power station.

All these experiences have brought me many gifts. I have discovered determination and strength that has often eluded me. Not just the determination and strength to survive, but the determination and strength to keep moving toward greater appreciation for life and living, and, more importantly, a greater appreciation for myself and my gifts. I have spent much of my life merely surviving because I did not appreciate myself. Even at times when I have been engaged in doing great things professionally and have realized significant personal growth through education, therapy, men’s groups, or other activities, I continued to judge myself as less than others. No matter how good I did, in my mind, it wasn’t good enough. This has led to many ups and downs, affected my consistency and success, took me through two divorces, and influenced how I raised my children.

I have learned how little I need to survive and, while I have always carried this perspective to a certain degree, I am gaining deeper awareness of how unimportant all the material possessions are that I have spent my adult life chasing. This yearning for material wealth and the ensuing depression and dissatisfaction with my success has caused me to miss opportunities with my children, lose my patience with my kids and others, caused horrendous effects on my physical and mental health, and more. At the same time, I would not be the person I am today without all these experiences. While getting to this point in my life has not been easy, I am happy to be here, and I value the choices and struggles that have brought me here.

Letting go of the idea that I am a failure if I am not perfect or can’t do something others can, even if it is something I don’t have interest in doing, and relieving myself of the pressure to meet societal standards has been the greatest gift ever. I can’t say I never consider what others think of me. The change is in not allowing the judgements of others to keep me from being myself and living in a way that works for me. I have a vision and passion for the future that is about bringing me peace and joy above all else.

I am excited to see how long this road is and where it leads, and I am content to be in the process. I will continue to type and record updates. If you would like to stay up to date on what I’m doing, please follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, and check out my website (see links below).

Much Love ❤️