I saw this post on LinkedIn this week. My first response was “Who has ‘matches’ on their general shopping list!?” but then it reminded me of a story that happened to Lauren and me a few months ago…
In June, we were traveling from Mpumalanga to the Garden Route to move into a new nomad-ready spot in Hoekwil, near Wilderness and George. We were scheduled to arrive quite late in the evening, so before we arrived, Lauren’s mom (who lives in George) arranged with the owners of the place to allow her access so that she could stock our fridge and shelves with a few ‘bare essentials’ we’d need, as a surprise. Wonderful!
On arrival, we were indeed surprised and spoilt with some basic items like milk and bread, but there were also a few items that we would never have considered as, for us, ‘bare essentials’. The list of items – in this story – is irrelevant, but the more interesting part of what we’d experienced is how the assumption of “Everyone’s bare essentials in the home are equal” was quickly shattered. It also opened our eyes to adding or changing a few of our everyday lifestyle and food-based choices, so that we keep it interesting, and don’t get too bored with the ‘same old, same old’.
So why am I telling you this?
Living a vagabond lifestyle results in a lot of people telling us how they’re bored, they feel trapped, they want to change up their lifestyle but just can’t, etc etc etc. And while I won’t go into the flipside of a travel-forward lifestyle, there’s a few quick-fixes that people can do in their own live, right now, if they feel stuff or bored with their current way of life.
Get someone else to buy your groceries this month.
Give them a budget, a timeframe (in terms of how much food you actually need) and of course any crazy dietary requirements, and let them go wild. They’ll probably go to a different store that you go to, they may buy a different granola flavour that you automatically magnetise towards, and your eyes will be opened to a few new things you wouldn’t have tried yourself.
In the past 30 days, 53k people spoke of being bored when it comes to food. If that’s you, try something new. Or better, get someone else to try something new for you.
