Tiny House, Gratitude, and Success
This is a story about how we chose to build a 600 square foot house, and please, I encourage you to share your stories with us. I recognize that this story is unique to our family and your story is probably different. Everyone is driven by different motivators and passions, but I think the discussions here are universal. However, before we talk about our family’s story I would like to talk a moment about success and gratitude. How in the world do gratitude and success have anything to do with a tiny house? Hopefully, it will all make sense by the end of the story so please keep reading. Our first son joined us in June 2017 and while we were sleep deprived and consumed in his world Megan and I began seeking answers to questions that had been bothering us for quite some time. How can we meet all the so-called wickets of success but feel like shit? Why do we make so much money but feel broke? Why do we feel so disconnected? Are we missing something? Is it my job that is making me not happy? Why are we miserable in our jobs? How are we making money but still don’t seem to have any left over every week? Why is the house never clean? So many more questions came up, but I think you get the gist. The importance of these questions is only that they are focused on what we didn’t have. Our second son came along in January of 2019 and while we were, yet again, sleep deprived and consumed in his world while trying to provide for our oldest some clarity was achieved. Look at all that we do have! Two amazingly beautiful babies, each other, loving and supporting family, stable jobs, opportunities, and love. SO MUCH LOVE AND SO MUCH TO LOVE! What a wonderful and beautiful thing we have with this life.
Gratitude - The sum of my knowledge of gratitude is this - Expressing gratitude places emphasis on the relationships or things that you already have. In effect you are zooming in on ALL the things that you already have in your life and zooming out on the things that you don’t have. When practiced regularly, expressing gratitude is eye opening. Most of us already have so much good on our daily lives but do not see the good because we are focused on what we don’t have (or what we want to possess). Striving to obtain new things in an attempt be happier rather than enjoying what we already have. My lack of being grateful resulted in a pile of toys, an even bigger pile of debt, struggling relationships, and a lack of job satisfaction.
Success - It is my opinion (completely based on my own experiences) that the definition of success that is most widely accepted by folks is driven by cultural inputs rather than individual inputs. I have recently come to the following conclusion. True success is defined by the individual and success is achieved when the individual’s ideas of freedom are achieved. Do you like to travel? Then you would be successful when you have the means to travel when and how you see fit. Do you like to build furniture? Then you would be successful when you can build furniture when and how you see fit. The phrase “keeping up with the Jones’s” has regularly found its way into conversations that Megan and I have. It was the life I lived for 25 years. The mental picture of success that I carried around for those 25 years included a six-figure job, 2500 square foot house, a nice car with leather and heated seats, and a beautiful wife and kids. I achieved “success” at the age of 35…………….. yet it did not feel good or right. I love Megan and my son with my whole being, but I felt like I had a massive weight on my chest suffocating me and I could not see what was sitting there in front of me.
When you combine the discussions of gratitude and success you can see why we were seeking answers! 2 years after asking ourselves all those questions over and over and over and over again we have begun to understand. We had become disconnected from our true selves and what we value the most in life through unintentionally living an ungrateful way. This great disconnect was preventing us from living our best life, loving with our whole self, or fulfilling our purpose. We had everything that other people told us we needed to be happy. We were lacking a lot of the things that our minds were telling us we needed to be happy.
What was making us unhappy?
1) Debt - $300,000 in debt. Mortgage, cars, student loans, credit cards.
2) Unused space - 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 2500 square foot house. We used 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, kitchen, and living room. The rest was used as storage space for clutter with the doors closed. We measured up the square footage of the spaces we didn’t actively live in and guess what….. the total was about 1800 square feet. Which meant we actively lived in 700 square foot of space and the rest was essentially storage unit space.
3) Clutter - 1800 square feet of storage amounted to a ton of shit that we never really used. We single handedly filled up our local donation center with a ton of brand new or once used stuff. It was all nice top of the line items that we never really needed.
4) Distance from family and work - I drove 75 miles round trip on work days which meant that I lost out on 2 hours of family time every day just driving to and from work. Megan’s family lived an hour away and that never seems far until you make that trip with kids and then drive home after. The reality is we only saw family a few times a year and that wasn’t working out for us
How did we address what was making us unhappy? We listened to Dave Ramsey and started our path to being debt free. We put money in savings and then we paid off 75% of our debt (we still have vehicle loans to pay off once we are done with the house)! We renovated our house from bottom to top, inside and out in 8 months and sold it! We gave away or threw out everything that we were not using (this felt exceptionally good) We bought the most magical property close to work and family and moved in with the in-laws while we build our dream home. It was a conscious effort of identifying what we are grateful for and reimagining success that led us to renovate and sell our big 2500 square foot house, buy 42 acres, and build a 600 square foot home.
We slipped once we started designing our house and it quickly grew into a 2200 square foot house again and we were started to feel the weight of all of the things we talked about already. The stress was building up again and the disconnect was showing up in our lifestyle and decisions again and we were not as happy as we had been a few months before. Then one day we went camping with our family and we stayed in a 10 foot by 30 foot cabin for the weekend and we absolutely loved it! We measured and imagined and talked about our motives again. We were SO EXCITED about this tiny space! on our way home we were so passionately talking about ditching the plans we had at the time for a 2200 square foot house to plan and build a 600 square foot house that we drove 20 miles past our exit before realizing where we were, lol. It was fantastic and exciting. The energy was amazingly positive and we contacted our architect to start the process of designing out tiny home.
So what am I grateful for? Every day that I get to wake up and live a better life than I did yesterday. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a better Husband for Megan, Father for Keene and Oliver, Son to my Mom and Dad, Brother to my sister, and Friend of my friends. I am grateful that we have the ability to create a home in alignment with our versions of success. Lastly, I am thankful to have the opportunity to be a better Barret for myself…… yup! I said it.
Do we feel successful? Very much so. We are not making any more money than we used to, but we have unbelievable amounts of freedom. Our lives and relationships are thriving, and we are growing every single day. We still have a lot to learn about ourselves and we fall back into old habits at times. We are constantly backing each other up so we can stay on course. None of this project is easy, but we feel that it is a worthwhile investment of our time and energy.
Do we know that 600 square feet is right for us…………………………. Stay tuned in to find out