Escaping from the turbulent city life to rebuild oneself in a remote, quiet corner in the countryside or in the middle of the mountains is a widespread aspiration, as demonstrated by its popularity in works of fiction in books and on the screen. I must confess I do suffer from it and am hoping to follow this wish as soon as possible, and hopefully quite sooner than retirement. Luckily in this post ‘Find Freedom of the Mountain in Everything You Do‘, Leo Babauta explores how to address this longing at your current home. It’s all about your feeling of freedom.
“What we (and many others) crave is not really the mountain, but freedom. Simplicity and space and the liberating feeling of freedom. We think if we simplify and let everything go and get our lives free of the burdens, we’ll feel free. But what I’ve found is that getting rid of everything and living a simple life doesn’t necessarily give you that freedom.”
“A teacher a few years ago gifted me with a liberating idea: find the freedom in your current life, without having to change a thing.” There is more detail in the post about to achieve this state of freedom in your current situation without moving to this remote un-connected location of your dreams.
Although I believe this post only addresses one side of the yearning (the other side being to live at a slower pace, in a less crowded location and without the traffic jams and dense public transportation), it provides quite an interesting insight into this widespread yearning (I do not agree with the term fantasy used by Leo Babauta).
Anyway it is worth remembering that we can do much to increase our sense of freedom where we are right now geographically or otherwise, and that we should focus on developing it.
