The Power of Resignation

At one point in my life, I started thinking, or rather, realizing. I remember waking up one morning with a clear question in mind:

Is this really what my life is about?

Let me tell you a story. A story about life and results.

I was working as a social benefit officer, responsible for assessing legal eligibility for benefits. I had no relationship, paid high rent, covered gas and electricity bills, groceries, and taxes, the usual. My two eldest children had already left home, and the youngest was about to. My job was on the other side of the country, so during the week, I stayed in hotels or Airbnbs.

My salary was decent, but there wasn’t much room for saving. Putting away € 50,= a month doesn’t exactly change your life. So I started thinking:

How can I create a real gap between my income and expenses, something that allows me to save, grow, and breathe?

Then it hit me: I was paying rent for a house I was only Staying for 28.57% of the time. That’s 71.43% wasted time and money. My hotels were paid for. My youngest daughter no longer came around. And I realized:

I don’t want to keep running in circles, running the wheel of doom? Earning money just to pass it on to others so they can get rich.

Second: rent is indefinite. You’ll be paying it for as long as you live. But you need a place to stay, right?

Well… that’s the challenge I gave myself.

If I don’t like the results of my life, I have to change the input.

I had to stop just “paying” and start “investing”. Coincidentally, I wrote a blog on this recently, but this is about independent thinking. Because let’s face it: having a roof over your head is considered a basic human need, right? You don’t just give that up.

But here’s the truth I discovered:

"You can only get ahead when you detach from the common way of thinking".

Here are a few of the things I realized:

• Rent only works if you keep paying. So how sustainable is that, really?
• Owning a house sounds great, until you see the average price. €300,000. With interest, you end up paying around €400,000. That’s not sustainable either.
• A mortgage doesn’t make you a homeowner, it makes you a rentee of the bank. The house is collateral for your loan. (Fun fact: hypotheek comes from the Greek hypothēkē — ὑποθήκη — meaning “pledge” or “collateral.”) Another fun fact is "mortgage is a “dead pledge”, an agreement that ends either with fulfillment or forfeiture.

On top of that if I want to travel for 3–6 months, I'm still paying rent for a house I don’t use. What if I want to stay away longer? That’s wasted money and freedom.

At 45, I needed to weigh my options. I wanted to be free and still have a place to return to. So I made a radical decision. I decided to break free from the paradigm. And just as importantly, I broke free from the standard way of thinking.

Want to know how I did it?:

I bought a piece of privatized forest land with a 60-year-old shack on it. I got rid of 80% of my belongings and chose to live as minimalistic and basic as I could.

Thanks to my background in Scouting, my interest in survival, and a bit of Rambo mindset, I knew I had the skills to make it work.

The shack was 5 x 6 meters, with a tiny attached bathroom. It was run-down, infested with mice, and had no running water, electricity, gas, or insulation. It froze to -7°C inside during winter. But I saw it as an investment in my future.

No rent. No mortgage.

€ 500 a month saved.

Plus, I still had to pay € 500 for the land.

I had a woodstove. I stayed in hotels during the week.

But the best part?

I had reversed the stream of money. It flowed toward me.

That’s the power of resignation.

Want to know how I pulled it off in detail?

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