Covid-19, “The Corona Virus” is encouraging or forcing people to stay away from work. For so many, this represents a desperate financial quandary. What about the bills?

I feel the pain of people living paycheck to paycheck, gig workers, wage workers, and everyone to whom a hiatus from work represents missing rent or mortgage payments, and defaulting on debt.

As a traveling writer, I’ve never had a fixed income to rely on—I’ve had good years and very difficult ones—had well-paying projects and editors really into buying my work, and times I’ve searched in vain for writing work while slipping into credit card debt just to eat.

Living without a fixed income is why I’ve never been able to join the world of monthly expenses most people live with like it’s normal—a lease or mortgage, cell phone contracts, Internet, cable, streaming services, car payments, car insurance, health insurance premiums—these lists can go on. And they do—and to me the bigger the ongoing monthly expenses one has, the thicker their cage’s bars. Simplicity and minimalism has been my ticket to living a free life on my own terms.

Financial Freed is Freedom from “normal” Monthly Expenses

Several years ago, someone asked me on social how I could afford to travel so much. “I can’t afford not to,” was my answer.

What’s the point of living in the richest country on earth when most people we know live to service their monthly expenses?

If the Corona Virus is revealing one valuable reality, it’s that our salary system isn’t set up for pandemic disruptions. Most people can’t just not go to work for any long period.

This is a case example of a larger societal issue. Part of it plays into the homeless population. People don’t have long before a loss of income leads to destitution. During the driest deserts of my freelancing life, I could always go home to mom and dad to live in their basement—not everyone comes from families where that’s a possibility.

This social workforce setup is also why even on a normal day, most only can afford a few weeks off from work every year. Ask any European, they think that’s the craziest.

Our setup is also why immediately after ending one job, most don’t have time to breathe, they need to get another job stat!—or face a financial downfall and lose everything they’ve worked so hard to have—house, car, health, credit score, etc. No one has space to write their book, compose their symphony, paint their masterpiece, or hike the Appalachian Trail.

Positive Change Stems From Belief Improvement is Possible

So my challenge to the collective is this: can we imagine a better system for everyone within the free market ideals and capitalistic values that underpin what our society is built upon?

If the average worker could do without their job for a while, wouldn’t the average employer might have to set up a better situation for everyone to stick around?

I have no political side or agenda I’m trying to steer you to. I keep out of conversations that divide the world into two. Neither do I have any easy answers to the questions of “How do we get out of this?” I’ve only been able to answer that for myself—I never went in there to begin with.

From my life—and it’s on a strange trajectory—I see all this from the outside. My high school guidance counselor once tried to steer me toward being a doctor and a lawyer based on my grades and test scores. “You’re playing with a full deck, Mr. Armstrong,” he said. And then I broke his guiding heart and he watched me throw all the cards in that full deck on his office floor when I told him my plans post-high school. I was unmoved by his entreaties to go for higher education that was sure to yield a high paying career. That seemed like a trap to 18-year-old beer-bonging me.

I told him words a guidance counselor never wants to hear. Words that brought up his most defeated look, “I want to major in philosophy and English.”

I’ve never been good at turning my heart down. So at the loss of material comforts and a retirement plan, I’ve followed that heart to a certain freedom.

So, without some grand plan, I can say this. This coronavirus stuff is changing things. It’s putting the world on pause. And that’s a great time to improve things—inside ourselves and within our society. Maybe if we had a system where we could put the world on pause more readily, than that would also be a world where we had more time to hike mountains with our people, create art, have more family time.

Who knows? It’s true these are just thoughts from a guy who could have been a doctor or lawyer, but instead decided to go on an adventure.

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Hey there friend! Thank you for stopping by my blog. You can support me and my writing my checking out my latest book “All the Beloved Known Things“

Or check out my book of non-fiction travel adventures, “The Nomad’s Nomad“

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IG: @LukeSpartacus