Discomfort experiencing the "haven't made it yet" phase of self-sufficiency

Hi all ,

Lots has happened since I was more active in the permaculture community. I'll be 30 next year, living with my partner who is in late 20s. We both became interested in self-sufficiency many years ago. We loved growing our own food organically and I got to work a few summers on 5-10 acre permaculture plots. We travelled across Canada together intending to work our away across many intentional communities and self-sufficient farms. Then COVID hit and all our plans halted. Travelling across Canada doing workaway hit a dead end with lack of opportunity and lockdowns. Both of us had major setbacks in stable employment due to lockdowns as well.

We had a lot of time on our hands we found ourselves spending lots of time building a new like-minded community. All that was wonderful despite the setbacks. However, now that life is sort of up and running again, we find ourselves knee deep in developing our careers. I'm going back to school for massage therapy and my partner is trying their hand at university lecturing. There is a gratitude in having opportunity to move forward in our career lives again but now finding myself in a 9am-8pm schedule most weekdays I am really feeling the discomfort creeping in. Some of the days when life was still slow there was a real magic to spending time out on rural properties connecting deeply with others, learning about ourselves spiritually, and being in nature.

I feel like I am now in the phase of "haven't made it yet" to self-sufficiency and life goals. I want a career so I can afford a lifestyle that's more connected to the land, people, and doing good enjoyable things with my time outside of work. The ideal goal is to live somewhere in a smaller town, closer to nature doing a lot of self-sufficient practices. It feels hard in Canada because you need a lot of capital to start out and that requires a decent career (or so I think). We have about 130,000 in combined $$ and that does not feel like enough to invest in a homestead anywhere an 1-2 hours outside a city without solid careers yet. It feels like I am sliding backwards towards a life that is less sufficient than ever now that I am back in school. I have very little time to hike in nature, forage, learn self-sufficiency skills, or do much outside of studying. I'll also be spending a huge chunk of my savings in order to re-educate. I am doubling-down buying into the current system in the hopes that I can get out of it more in the future.

Its very tough spiritually and emotionally to be so disconnected from my desire to be in nature and live more simply with others. I hope this is one of those cases where the means justify the ends but days like this I just wonder if these feelings aren't signaling something deeper missing, like I should be pursuing a career where I work mainly outdoors (tough to find decent pay opportunities with winters here).

Anyone have an experience with a phase like this in life? How can I get through this period with more understanding and acceptance of it all? Any and all words of wisdom or relatable stories appreciated.

I have a little bit different course and goals and I'm a little more advanced in age than you, but I remember a similar feeling when I was about 30.

I think it's a pretty common time to be neck deep in "What am I ACTUALLY going to do with my life?" and "Is this course what I really want?"

I certainly felt that way. I flip flopped around with the exact direction I wanted to go until pretty recently. I still can't read the distant future, but I think the best you can do is plot a course that makes sense and leave room for sudden opportunities and sudden disasters.

For what it's worth my dad told us he didn't really feel like his career took off until he was 50, and after that he felt extremely successful. That has been reassuring to me.

Re the OP,


A few thoughts come to mind based upon my experiences, which may not pertain to you.

First, at some point, I simply decided to pull the trigger.  I realized I was never going to be 100% comfortable.

Second, I also came to realize I was never going to be 100% self sufficient.  I am satisfied that each year I am more self sufficient.

Third, I did build in several potential income streams (this was done over a couple of decades).   My involvement in my homestead has varied based upon my financial needs as well as income opportunities.  I have dropped out from the the mainstream ( or re-entered, depending upon perspective) at least 3x in my life based the above factors. I have been, at times, without a job, for years at a time.  At another point, I was working 3 jobs…..Three excellent opportunities presented themselves, and I decided to take advantage of all of them.

By the way, I didn’t make the big jump until I was 32.  I was involved in gardening before them, but my really serious move did not come until I was in my 30s.  I did a great many things right. I also made some serious errors. My most serious one was I did not evaluate my neighbors.

I just read the above post.  There is a reason why the expression “ Life begins at 40” came into being.  

Something that helps is the saying "Taking it one day at a time."

Many times folks try to climb that ladder of success too fast.

Take it one day at a time and stop to smell the roses.

One thing to be mindful of is that you are in the midst of your Saturn return. It can feel a lot like WTF. I joke that at the end of my Saturn return, I looked like Frodo and Samwise after they ran out of the mountain after casting the ring into the fire.

While I completely understand having to maintain something in modern life to afford the self sufficient life, it is incredibly difficult and something I would challenge your to contemplate and meditate on further.

For myself, I realized that I was focusing on making a living off the land rather than living off the land so I had to unlearn and then relearn that aspect of recognizing abundance and realizing that if I was wanting to live this earth based lifeway, I need to let go of my safety net of modern society (even just a little bit). Our family is poor by society standards (my jaw dropped when I saw how much you saved because that is almost how much we paid for our house and 21 acres here in KY) but have such great abundance because we realized we couldn't afford to buy things. Our sheep/goat house is a bunch of tires we collected and metal roofing scraps that were left behind by the previous owner. We plan to change it when we save up for a large purchase of straw bales but it protects our animals at didn't cost us anything.

Not saying we are perfect and the example everyone should follow but we had to overcome a lot to get here and we are finally seeing the benefits. We are taking a income hit next year when my husband medically retires (losing half the income) but we are quite comfortable in our ability to thrive on it because of the above mindset.

Avoid trying to buy the self sufficient life.

I'm not sure where in Canada you are Jen, but here in Ontario prices vary wildly based on location. Where I currently am 20+ acres of land goes for well over $150,000 and that's just raw land. However if I look further North, think Timmins area or around Kirkland lake, similar parcels of land go for anywhere from $30,000 to $65,000. Mostly because the majority of people don't want to live that far north.  If you absolutely need to be within an hour or two of a major city, it will be much more challenging to find reasonably priced land.

Lecturing as a university professor does require some sort of college/university nearby definitely. But massage therapy, if you go the private practice route, can be done in places with relatively small populations. Often there is little competition, and a huge market, because in rural areas you have lots of aging folks still doing physical work, and someone who can give a good massage is worth their weight in gold!

If you can adapt to the local market that helps too, but I get if you want to stick with what you enjoy. For example in Timmins the mining industry is huge, so if there are any skills that are transferable to that industry, you can do very well and earn a good living, even in a real tiny town.

Anyway there are my thoughts as a 24 year old dude searching for land. If you're willing to go where most folks don't want to, you're setting yourself up for a easier search. If not, just stay persistent in your search and make sure everyone you know knows you're searching. The more eyes on the lookout the more likely you are to get leads. Good luck!!