Well its coming to the end of 2014 now and I haven’t written in this blog for quite awhile. I think about GFRF a lot, and I often think about things I would like to write about in the blog, but I am just too busy trying to take care of the other things in my life.  I think as it comes close to the end of the year I really should write at least something to update on where I am at with GFRF.

Basically GFRF is still a real struggle.  I really like doing things in this way, I see the potential of doing things in this way, and if GFRF was widely adopted I even see it as a solution for a multitude of social ills and perhaps even a formula for utopia.  BUT, so many people really don’t seem to understand GFRF, or if they do they are so conditioned into the standard economic way of doing things that they have a hard time embracing it.  Instead of GFRF opening a door of opportunity to people, for many it creates a barrier of misunderstanding.

GFRF is a very idealistic way to live and I have done my best to operate in this way, but it has been hard to get it to catch on.  In previous blog posts I have written about the need to communicate more about GFRF to help people understand it and become comfortable with it, but I find myself so busy with providing the services that I offer that I do not have the time and energy to also put significant effort into this communication.  I think for GFRF to really work well it may need a critical mass of people operating in this way to share the communication load and create a level of social normalcy around the concept.

And so I find myself a bit stuck in the middle.

I have glimpsed the possibilities of GFRF and I have tried to put it into practice the best I can, and have very much enjoyed the way this makes me feel and the way it helps me to focus on true value and not the distorted perception of value that sometimes comes when financial consideration is included in the perspective.

To date I have managed to live GFRF in only a portion of what I do, a very significant portion, but still just a portion.  Ideally I would like to do everything GFRF, but I haven’t had the confidence to do this.  I think this is largely down to my level of financial strength and freedom.  I think to live in a way which is at odds with the prevailing way of doing things requires great strength and courage, and maybe I’m not there yet. I think I have the courage, but maybe not the strength.

You see I only started to think of things in a GFRF way when I had paid off all my debts. As soon as I was completely debt free a window opened in my perception that allowed me to see the potential in GFRF, and so I decided to give it a try.  But being debt free may not be enough, as I do not have an asset base I am in a way still not very free.  I have the continuing obligation of paying substantial amounts of money in rent so that I can have a place to offer my services and also to live.  While I have this obligation it is difficult to operate completely GFRF, as I need some confidence that I can cover this rent, and my experience with GFRF has been that I could have had real trouble at times in meeting this obligation if I had been solely operating in this way.

I think if I had more financial strength (ie an asset base sufficient to provide me with premises to work in and a place to live) I would feel much more capable of going completely GFRF, and I think for psychological reasons I would be able to begin to go further in thinking differently and seeing things differently, in much the same way as I began to think about GFRF initially after becoming free from debt.  But things have not been going well enough under GFRF to allow me to accumulate the kind of asset base I would need for this…

I wonder if it might be a case of needing to take a few steps backwards before again moving forwards, to put more of my time and effort into activities that I set a price on so that I can acquire the resources I need to then put my time and energy back into things without price.  A case of doing more work in the system to become free from the system.

I know though that it is easy to become submerged in the normal way of thinking when you are operating within the system, to start to believe the rules and boundaries of the system are real and lose sight of the deeper truth outside of the system.  Having glimpsed the potential of GFRF, I don’t want to lose sight of it.  So I think I will continue to try to offer as much as I can on a GFRF basis, but until I start to receive more from these GFRF efforts I may need to rebalance my time and energy to spending more of it on pursuits where my return is more certain.

I’m not sure what shape this is all going to take, and my inclination is still to do more GFRF and not less.  I actually have an idea of how I could go completely GFRF at least for a time.  It would involve freeing myself of my need to have a lease and pay rent… so I think it would only be a temporary solution.  But it would allow me to be full GFRF, and I wonder if there is power in that, power that would allow me to acquire the resources I need to be able to continue GFRF permanently.  I wonder if part of the reason why I have struggled to succeed with GFRF is because I have not been able to commit 100% to it.

Anyway, its not something I can do immediately, but may be able to start working towards.  I guess I will see what eventuates.