“I want to RV full-time someday!” I hear that exclamation, declaration, and response regularly. When someone finds out that we are in their local area because we are full-time RVers they always have a story to tell. They say something like, “Yes, we plan to do that one day. We just have to…
- Raise the kids/grandchildren
- Sell this or that
- Find the right time
- Retire
- Figure this out…
But we will one day.”
Right now, I’m reading a book with a friend. It is a self-help book with a simple message: “Don’t keep doing a habit because you are fearful of how you will handle the change.” What is the worst that can happen? You are back to the same old habit? But what can happen if you succeed—the possibilities are endless. The book’s message is so relevant to starting a full-time RV lifestyle.
I understand fear. By nature, we are embedded with the instinct of fear. It is there to protect us from doing something that will endanger our health, our safety, and our mental well-being—or letting someone or something else do it. At the very center of our safety is a secure roof or dwelling over our heads. Someplace to belong.
A house is something known. We are bombarded with messages our whole lives that one American dream is owning our own home. Does it have to be a brick-and-mortar home? Does living in an RV home initiate fear? Does leaving your community elicit fear? It may not be the home you always imagined, but it’s still a home.
One thing you learn about fear is that it is temporary. It is a rush in adrenaline that is there to give us the flight or fight instinct that exists even in animals without higher brain functions like humans. We were gifted with brains that can reason out when there is a real danger. Another saying I like and another thing we have to remember when fear swells up inside is, “Fear is temporary but regret is forever.” I have a patch on my motorcycle vest that says that very thing. Each time I approach a situation that is fearful, I must think, is this a temporary fear I can overcome so I won’t regret not doing it later?
Our kids and family are grown adults now spread out around the United States. We see them more now that we are full-time than we did when we lived in our brick-and-mortar home. We sold everything, and anything that was sentimental we gave to our kids. They were going to get it when we die anyway. We are not retired so we figured out how to work full-time from the road. And you know what…our first plan didn’t work!! An unexpected pandemic took away jobs shortly after we started, but four years later we are back to and still working full-time from the road.
The fear was temporary but there is no regret. Just like having a child, raising a family, proposing, getting married, retiring, and jumping into full-time RV lives—there is no “right” time. There is just a day you do it and you make it happen because you want to. We don’t have to leave behind community, family, and safety. It is all here in this lifestyle. We can leave behind that temporary fear of change because life will throw curve balls at us no matter if we are in a brick-and-mortar home or an RV.
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