Good and Sufficient for a Happy Home

Stories for Thriving
, ,
1

I know exactly how to make myself unhappy.

Just get attached to something—some place, some outcome, some idea. Convince myself that I need it in order to be happy. Then notice that I don’t have it. Maybe I can’t have it right now. Maybe, truthfully, I won’t ever have it. That’s a guaranteed way to pull myself out of presence and into misery.

And if I really want to turn up the heat on that misery, I can throw the thing I want on a vision board. Start striving. Struggling. Competing. Fighting to get it. Only to discover that even if I do manage to get it, it doesn’t feel the way I imagined. The experience I fantasized about? It’s not here in the having.

This is the terrain of emotional freedom. Because even as a human being—one who needs a home, a way to get around, who has real requirements for survival—I also see how easily I can poison my own thriving by insisting that where I am now isn’t enough. That it’s not good. That it’s insufficient.

And when I do that, when I focus on how this place isn’t good enough, some deeper part of me raises a hand and says, “Wait a second. Actually? This place is kind of amazing.”

It’s low pressure. It’s affordable. There’s a lease with certainty… and some wiggle room for freedom, too. There’s clarity for at least nine months to a year, with no real question marks. That’s stability. That’s space to breathe.

But then the ancient parts of me wake up—the ones that inherited ancestral codes. That primal drive to control my territory. And that’s when being a renter starts to itch. Because if I rent, I have to trust my landlord. Not just trust myself. Even if—factually—he’s one of the most trustworthy humans I’ve met… I still don’t own the place.

That simple truth can trigger all kinds of stories. “I probably couldn’t own this home even if I wanted to.” “I don’t qualify for a mortgage.” “Even if I found a way… it’s not for sale.” And suddenly, I’m unhappy again. Not because of what’s real, but because of where I’m putting my focus: on the uncertainty, the perceived lack, the longing.

And longing, it turns out, runs deep.

I remember how my mother hated renting. We moved into an apartment after she divorced my dad, and I could feel her resentment in my bones. She hated that place. Hated the townhouse after that, too—even though it was beautiful and within our means because we were renting. She held onto that discontent for years.

Even when she eventually owned—even when a house was gifted to her—there was still a tension in her energy. That myth, that ownership equals freedom? It didn’t seem to deliver. Not for her.

And so I wonder… what did I inherit?

There’s no denying I inherited some of that discomfort. But I’m also evolving it. I’m getting curious about what actually serves my family and me right now. What actually supports thriving.

And you know what I’ve come to see?

I’m not a real estate guy. I’m not a property investor. I’m a steward.

That shift changes everything for me. Stewardship is about caring for a place, a space, a resource. Renting doesn’t prevent me from doing that. In fact, it might even free me up to do it more fully. And in today’s world, there are so many property owners desperate for good stewards—people who will honor a space and tend to it well.

My social credit score? It’s excellent. Not the kind you get from a bank—something deeper. And being a responsible renter? That’s my way of honoring that.

Still, I can feel how the landscape is changing. My kids are growing. They want different energy. We walked through the house across the street and they lit up—claiming bedrooms, imagining lives. That possibility thrilled them.

And while we’re not buying that house—it’s not the right path—it reminded me of something important: as a renter, we can change. We can shift energy. Without being weighed down by ten percent commissions and fees just to handed to brokers and the government for the privilege of buying or selling.

It’s emotional work, this. Deep work.

Sometimes, when I want something I don’t have, I pause and ask myself: Do I really want it? What makes it actually matter to me?

Or is it just a shape I’ve inherited from someone else’s dream? What makes something feel truly amazing, alive, and right?

Sometimes, not having the thing gives us a chance to ask deeper questions.

Questions that liberate.

The American Dream says: own your home. But I’m more interested in something else. I want a homestead that feels hearty, kind, generous. I want it to be Good and Sufficient for our Thriving.

And that’s not about a deed or a mortgage.

That’s about how we live.

And how I show up, right now, in the place I get to call home.

Useful Concepts for Thriving in This Story

  • Acceptance
    Acceptance grounds us in the present moment with rising confidence that we can be with life as it is.

  • Stewardship
    Stewardship is when we tend to spaces, places, and relationships so they are nourished and not depleted.

  • Emotional Freedom
    Emotional Freedom respects that we will feel the full spectrum—and allows us to respond rather than react.

  • Lifestyle Design
    Lifestyle design is when we consciously choose what thriving means and align our choices with that.

  • Limiting Beliefs
    Limiting beliefs are stories we tell ourselves that diminish our thriving—and can be unlearned.

3 Likes
2

The Anatomy of Longing and Its Seduction

  • We often unknowingly craft our own suffering by tying happiness to something external—a place, an outcome, an idea—and then noticing its absence.
  • The more we cling to what we don’t have, the more we disconnect from the richness of what is already here.
  • Vision boards, striving, and manifestation culture can sometimes deepen the wound rather than heal it, especially when we chase a fantasy disconnected from lived experience.
  • Longing can be both a mirror and a mirage—it reveals where we ache, but also where we’ve projected our worth onto something outside ourselves.

This Place, Right Now, Is Kind of Amazing

  • What’s present may feel ordinary… until we slow down enough to see its quiet abundance.
  • We can poison our own thriving by insisting that now isn’t enough, that this moment is a placeholder instead of a home.
  • Certainty doesn’t always arrive with grandeur—it may show up in a stable lease, a breathable cost of living, or a season of calm.

Ancestral Echoes and the Myth of Ownership

  • Not all discomfort is ours; some of it is inherited in the marrow—from parents who saw renting as lack, not choice.
  • Even those who “arrived” at ownership sometimes still carried discontent. The myth of ownership = freedom doesn’t always deliver.
  • Our bodies hold stories passed down—resentment, shame, striving—and part of our work is to meet them with curiosity instead of compulsion.

Shifting From Possession to Stewardship

  • The reframe from owner to steward brings relief. It invites care over control, tending over possessing.
  • Stewardship honors relationship—with place, with land, with energy. It says, “I’m here to nourish, not to conquer.”
  • Renting can be a sacred form of participation, not a failure. It allows for presence, flexibility, and sometimes deeper responsibility than ownership would.

Social Credit of the Soul

  • There’s a kind of credit score that no bank tracks—a trustworthiness built from how we show up, how we care, how we hold space.
  • Being a responsible renter can be an act of quiet rebellion and deep dignity.
  • We get to define success by how it feels to live here, not by whether the deed has our name on it.

The Fluid Nature of Desire

  • Desire changes. Children grow. Rooms shift. Dreams move.
  • The thrill of potential doesn’t always mean we must pursue it—it can serve as a signal of what wants to be felt or remembered.
  • Wanting doesn’t always require having. Sometimes it simply invites reimagining.

Deeper Questions That Liberate

  • When something feels missing, the true medicine may be in asking, “Is this my longing, or someone else’s?”
  • Not having the thing can be a gift—it gives space to discern what truly matters, and what’s just an echo.
  • Emotional freedom lives in this pause—in the sacred space between ache and action.

Redefining Home, Together

  • A home isn’t a title deed—it’s the energy we cultivate, the welcome we extend, the thriving we allow.
  • Thriving is less about acquisition and more about alignment: what feels hearty, kind, and sufficient right now.
  • The real American Dream might not be about ownership, but about belonging. About living fully, wherever we are.

Living Into Enough

  • Enoughness is a living practice. It breathes with our seasons, our needs, our clarity.
  • When we trust where we are, even as we evolve, we loosen the grip of “not yet” and root into “already.”
  • Our homes become sanctuaries when we stop fighting them and start blessing them.
2 Likes