Impossible!

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare."

Most people who heard what i planned thought i was crazy. Perhaps... It's true that my plan included alot of 'hope' and 'if' and 'maybe' but what else did i have to work with? I could take the safe road of a mortgage and suffer in that hellhole for another 30 years with a blind, unmotivated, depressed mother or i could take a leap and hope for the best. I leaped.

Sadly, too often in life i see people stagnate, they get stuck in a rut and stay there. They complain about life and the things they need to do to get by instead of changing it. They fear the unknown and the consequences it may bring.

Life doesn't change unless you are prepared to do something about it and most people's fears are completely baseless. Have you ever been without food? Have you ever been without shelter? Have you been fired from a job? Have you defaulted on a debt? If so, what happened? Let me guess, life was uncomfortable for a while, but you survived.... And that's sadly what alot of fear is about, being afraid of being uncomfortable.

Humans have this ingrained survival instinct. If you have ever called upon it, you know what i am talking about. No matter how bad life gets, it could always be worse and there is always a way out. You might not like the path you have to take but you will survive. Once you can overcome this fear, you have the potential to do anything.

I had to decide if i wanted to stay where i was or if i was willing to risk the unknown for a better life for myself and my family. I knew i had a limited amount of money and life would interfere and make that limited amount of money dwindle even further. To pretend otherwise would have been financial suicide. I weighed up my options and created many worst case scenarios. If the worst happened, would we be happy? The answer we came up with was this - If we have some land where the children can play, a roof to live under, power, water and mum had her eyesight back we would be happy. That became my goal, anything else became a bonus.

No one likes to be uncomfortable, it's human nature and stupid to try and fight it. Mum and I developed a list of things we wanted vs things we needed. We discussed costs and options, we talked in length and i did alot of research. I even had people in the sidelines prepared to come and help me erect a kit home if needed.

Taking a leap of faith doesn't involve closing to your eyes to the facts and reality, it's being prepared to hit a brick wall and living with the consequences. We were ready and not without some struggle, we jumped.

Compromise started early, the almost identical house next door was also up for sale, for a lower price. I had researched the housing market, i knew an investor would buy the house, i knew they would want the lowest price and i knew in the market the way it was, we would be lucky to sell within a year. When that investor hit the doorstep, it wasn't a matter of if he would buy the house, it was a matter of how much we were willing to take for it.

The house was put on the market on the 8th of December 2009 and sold less that a month later. I took $24k off the asking price in order to keep that buyer. When i jumped, with my mothers life in my hands, i wasn't ignorant to what i would see on the way down, it was simply a matter of how much it would hurt when i hit the bottom.

Selling the house that quickly meant i had to resign from my job, leave all my friends, take my kids out of school and move my family to another city and i had 45 days to do it.

We packed up the house, the kids, the car, the animals and we left Brisbane for a new life on the 14th of February 2010, we had nowhere to go, no home, just a self contained unit that was costing $165 per night. We of course had no money to pay the bill until the cheque cleared from the house, but hey whats the worst that could happen?