Tough choices, deep sacrifices, and hard work

What started out as a blog post with maybe two parts has multiplied into some sort of series, I guess. I've wondered and wandered around and rambled on about how in the world we got here, about how blessed we are, about the fact that choices matter, and about us realizing that we could take action to change our circumstances - that we didn't need to stay stuck where we were.

So what kind of action did we take? What changes did we make?

Those changes seem to fall into three categories: decisions, sacrifices, and hard work. And let me say that some of the decisions were agonizing, some of the sacrifices were painful and much of the work was really hard. The cost was high, but yes, the results were worth it.
You might think I'm being a wimp about something that seems like a piece of cake for you. but hey; I might observe your struggle and wonder why it is so hard for you, why you would struggle with that.

Here's the deal.

• What is tough for me might be fairly easy for someone else. 
• What feels really hard for you might not be difficult for me.
• We each have our own battles. Our own things that are crazy hard.

So what were those decisions, those sacrifices, and that hard work?

Here are a few examples of things that were tough for me:
 

What types of decisions?

• To change our thinking
• To simplify & downsize
• To let go of extras: extra dishes, extra books, extra clothes, extra supplies, big containers, stuff to feed an army

What sacrifices?

• Our home, our gathering place
• The legacy of Hidden Hollows
• Guest rooms
• Space & spaciousness
• Solitude, peace and quiet

What hard work?

• Retraining ourselves
• Sorting & pitching
• An agonizing mental and emotional process
• Discipline, diligence, persistence

...

Obviously, someone else's list might look quite different from mine. It is not intended to be a one-size-fits-all sampling. This simply explains a bit of the process that we've gone through and continue to work on.

As I've mentioned in the earlier posts of this little series, we had no clue what it would take or whether we would be up to the task. But here we are on this end - or maybe we're still smack-dab in the middle of the process. At any rate, we have made some tough decisions, we've given up some things so that we could trade for other things, we've figured out tentative steps to take and we've tackled them one at a time. And yes, we have seen big changes. And yes, we still shake our heads in wonder at it all.


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   Continue with the next post...

           ... or see the entire series here.