Matt Radick

Last week was a whirlwind. If you haven’t heard, on Tuesday, Josh, Colin, and I drove down to Indianapolis to catch a lecture about the Tiny House project and interview the originator of this idea, Jay Shafer. My head is still spinning from everything we went through and learned.

First of all, it was so great to take this production on the road and basically work on this production full time. We handed out a ton of business cards and met lots of cool people, hopefully some of them are reading this blog now!

Second, our interview with Josh was awesome. He had some really insightful things to say, and for being who he is and where he’s at, he was super down to earth. There was one idea in particular that really struck with me, and it will most likely show up in the film, but I wanna share it now.

I asked him about how cutting back on his personal belongings has positively impacted his life, if it has, and how it did. He said (I’m paraphrasing here) that by cutting out the excess and only surrounding himself with the stuff he actually needed to survive, living felt like it was something essential, rather than just something he did.

That idea really struck a chord with me. Not to say that living isn’t already essential - because of course it is - but I definitely feel like I desire to be feeling more like that. I want to wake up every day excited for what’s ahead of me. Also, in a lifestyle like what Jay described, you’re required so much more to do things for yourself, and I love that feeling of getting my hands dirty and working on something myself. That’s part of why I was so excited about learning about and working on my bike last week.

I don’t think a Tiny House lifestyle is exactly what I want to be doing at this point in my life, or ever, but I can definitely take a lot from that way of thinking. Another point Jay talked about is that it’s not necessarily about crafting your life to fit into a 100 square foot space, but it’s about thinking critically about what you really need to be happy, and making sure that you’re filling your life with that, not just a bunch of junk that’s slowing you down and holding you back. Which, I think, is an idea we can all get behind, whether it’s a small space or not.

Really looking forward to having more conversations like this as we move forward in this project. And as always, let us know what YOU think about what we’re doing!