I live just outside a community that’s a bit artsy, or I guess more formally it’s known as a politically progressive. Alternative lifestyles, art, all natural living, and a resistance to business and development are all topics that are mainstays in the local public discourse.
I’m not really politically sensitive anymore, or like any Professional Individual Contributor I don’t have bandwidth for politics in my life, so I have a tendency to not become involved in these subjects or related grass roots efforts. A recent topic that has started to be percolating more and more if the idea of ‘Tiny Houses’, and this is something that I find fascinating as it directly relates to some of the challenges faced by PIC’s.
In one of my earliest articles, I discussed the idea that we need to rethink our housing. Housing has gotten larger and larger for several reasons, mostly because of how our mortgage laws are structured. Admittedly more and bigger housing is nice, but more housing comes with huge lifelong commitments life.
Sadly this option doesn’t work for several reasons. Initially it doesn’t work because we are not really socialized to live on top of each other: we like our space. Space for in home gyms, space for the kids to have their own room, space for a media room, space for an in home office that is required more and more these days. Some of these space requirements are valid, some are not as much. If you are at the point in your life where you are working and raising kids, the concept of a Tiny house is not a good idea.
But when the kids are gone, when our careers are winding down, or we can do more at coffee shops, then maybe this concept of a Tiny house starts to become more reasonable. This is especially true with our significantly underfunded retirements.
We’ll have to work at it, acclimating ourselves to a lifestyle so different, but if we can do that as a group, then maybe it’s not not just a good idea, but maybe a tiny house becomes a big deal too.
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