Turtles-Paradise

I’d like to tell you a nasty little secret.

University – that’s college for any American readers – isn’t worth it.

Okay, I’ll qualify. University is absolutely brilliant for those who are passionate about a subject, can afford to take 3 years out of their lives to spend studying, and will take the most of every educational side-benefit offered. Most people who go to University aren’t like that though. They pay their money and expect a certificate at the end of the course. Most 18-19 year olds have no clue about what they want to do, or who they are, or what they like. Asking them to take out a £10,000 – 37,000 pound loan to fund a choice based mostly on guess work and social expectations is a little unfair.

Take that same £10k and volunteer in Africa, climb a mountain in Asia, road trip across Russia, and you’ll probably be a more interesting person at the end of the process.

Most people would be better served by not going to college. Learning a vocation is more practical. Become a master plumber or electrician. A lorry driver. You’ll earn about the same amount, but you’ll be earning quicker and you won’t be paying off your student loans. Travelling is more interesting, and can make for a better CV-builder. Or just wait, try a bunch of different things out as hobbies or adult ed courses until you realise that actually you really do want to spend 3 years reading ancient greek, or learning about clouds.

Most of the people I know that got a lot out of their degrees were older people – people who had made a choice to come, people who knew what they wanted from the course, people who were comfortable enough to speak out in class, ask questions, and reference abstract concepts to individual lives. They had already grasped the basics through self-education, and weren’t struggling to figure out how to learn independently.

Doctors, engineers, nuclear physicists - yes, you do need an education. But there’s no reason why a degree should be a standard requirement for almost any job above minimum wage, or why every teenager should attend a further few years of school before being given some responsibilities.

In short. Don’t go. Wait until you’re sure. Do some exploring, get a real job or an apprenticeship first. There’s plenty of time for college, and you will get a lot more out of it when you’re older.

In recent months I have stumbled upon a growing blogosphere about simplicity, minimalism, and living ‘tiny’. Up until then, I had been feeling somewhat distracted and overwhelmed. A lot had happened in a short period of time – all good things – and I had to re-adjust a lot to a new lifestyle. Along the way, I got a hacked off with the generally accepted life-plan that looks like this:

• Go to school
• Go to university
• Go to work
• Take out a loan to buy a house
• Continue going to work for a long time in order to pay off above loan
• Pay off the loan, but almost immediately move to the following step
• Go to a retirement home
• Die

Luckily, because such a life-plan is so utterly soul destroying and stupid – at least now that house-prices are astronomical, traditional jobs have deteriorated in almost every way (think: less money, more hours, less benefits, less security), and the internet has changed the very fabric of society – there are lots of people who have come up with better ideas. Ideas that include travelling the world or not going to work. Observing that – beyond a certain baseline – bigger hours, faster cars, and more stuff is not going to lead to happiness and a life well lived.

This is backed up somewhat by the fact that we have effectively destroyed our planet in the process of digging up and consuming our way through every resource it has to offer. It’s about time that we started investing something back into the planet, because the bank of Mother Earth is going to run dry very soon.

Which is why living small makes a lot more sense than living large.

There are few things in life so scary and so invigorating as a fresh start. ‘Wiping the slate clean’ and starting over.

This is not so much a fresh start, however, as an evolution. Turtles-Paradise has been with me for longer than I care to remember. It has served me well – holding up the Final Fantasy 7 obsessed rantings of my teenage years, the pseudo-intellectual ramblings of my early twenties, and now to be the repository of my ravings about my new obsessions.

Those obsessions being somewhat related; minimalism, frugality, downsizing (or downshifting), tiny living, permaculture, sustainability. A zen like approach to happiness and fulfillment. Finding value in doing everything mindfully and happily.

I will begin this story in the middle. Twenty five years old, married, working in web-design and for the council (the waste industry, if you are wondering), breaking just about even on the income/expenditure line, £100 in savings, with a penchant for good books, long holidays, container gardening and real food.

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