Vrij Leven (Dutch), To live free
This online space is not about living without money or possessions, but rather how to examine our lives and be able to define our own values and virtues. This is also not a self-help book which will cure you of all your addictions, but rather my personal logbook of things I found helpful on my path to a 'vrijleven'. I invite you to be a spectator to my journey. And if you want you can use some of my findings to incorporate into your own journey.
On the left, you can find resources and my analysis of topics, read which resonate with you.
Living in a developed country you might ask, what does living free mean? Let me tell you a story.
I am a wealthy human being (if not for money, let it be the number of opportunities available to me). I care about life and have thus researched my place in the ethical continuum, I decided to care about mother nature, live a healthy lifestyle and promote equal rights. I even spend some hard-earned bucks on some fancy books which reflect my opinions and even adapted my wardrobe to match my ethical principles.
And then.
After a long day at work, tired and hungry, I circle the vegetable aisle for the third time, my mind feels like a foggy cloud whenever I try to think of what to cook tonight. The inability of my decision-making induces stress, the thing I would like to evade in everyday life. I decide that I am going to battle the stress, I walk away from the vegetable aisle toward the coolers and decide, whatever, I'll just have a pizza.
What just happened? I threw away my own principles to eat healthily. But why?
Our brains are fast and intelligent machines. But the speed of our decision-making is what it is because we take shortcuts, our brain jumps from logic to emotion whenever we look away or are under stress. It's as if a child solving equations just fills in pretty numbers whenever the teacher is not looking.
I think that through practice, study and shaping the world around us we can overcome much of our automatic processes, and truly live according to our own principles.
Being free to do what we intended to do.