{"id":969,"date":"2021-04-19T08:40:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T08:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robdix.com\/?p=969"},"modified":"2021-04-17T09:16:31","modified_gmt":"2021-04-17T09:16:31","slug":"lightweight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robdix.com\/lightweight\/","title":{"rendered":"In praise of the lightweight life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is an odd thing for someone who spent about seven years travelling the world<\/a> to say, but…I’ve never been that into travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have no desire to tick off every country. We skipped most of the “must see” sights (I still can’t publicly admit that we failed to visit the Alhambra in Granada). It sounds contradictory, but the only way I can put it is that I like being at home…but I also like it when home moves every so often.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently we’ve been spending much more time in the UK, yet it’s been the same: I’m enjoying being at home, but (because we choose to rent<\/a>) we’ve already moved twice and are thinking of doing so again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Really though, thinking about it, it’s not the travel but the option<\/em> to travel that I actually value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, because of Covid, we couldn’t even do our annual “get the heck away from the darkness and coldness of January and February” trip \u2013 which we’ve previously always done, even if we were in the UK for the rest of the year. But still, even though we went nowhere, I felt satisfied by the fact that we could<\/em> and will again: it was only a one-off factor beyond our control that stopped us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why could we? Because although we can’t consider ourselves “digital nomads” now (which is just as well, because I hate that term), we still have a lightweight life<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a lightweight life?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The average family in the UK moves house every 19 years. There’s nothing wrong with putting down deep roots in a place: it’s the norm, and my desire to always be on the move may well have unhealthy psychological roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are many people who’d like<\/em> to move \u2013 even if just move house, not to a new part of the world \u2013 but feel trapped by one or more factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I aim for is the opposite of this: a “lightweight life” that can be picked up and moved anywhere with relative ease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn’t mean “full-time travel”. It might mean very little travel. It might mean a few weeks away one year, and six months away the next. It can mean anything, depending on what you want at the time: it just means having the option<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lightweight life isn’t the default: life has plenty of natural anchors. To keep my life lightweight, I’ve had to take deliberate action in multiple areas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n