My Year of Living Without Money by Carolien Hoogland (Full Transcript)

This is the full transcript of action researcher Carolien Hoogland’s TEDx Talk: My Year of Living Without Money at TEDxErasmusUniversity conference.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here: My year of living without money by Carolien Hoogland at TEDxErasmusUniversity

TRANSCRIPT: 

When I was about this small, I decided that I wanted to help save the planet. I was one of those kids that would tear off the label of the tea bag and then put it in the waste paper and then think where I put the staple. So I also really liked the idea of becoming a comedian. But I ignored that and I went to university to learn how to help save the environment. Save the planet. And about 10 years later in a master’s degree, many classes, books, a PhD degree, I became an environmental psychologist. Several research projects, I found myself sitting in a room at a computer. And I felt that I wasn’t really helping to save the planet.

And then something happened. In a farm north of Amsterdam I took part in a master class for transition management that was organized, by the way, by an ex-colleague from the DRIFT Institute which is right here at Erasmus University. And in the master class it was January 2009 over dinner we discussed the crisis and are shock when talented people around us and friends lost jobs. And one of us — one participant [Liang Fu], she said, “Imagine. Imagine all of us would lose their jobs and we’d simply live”. And something happened inside me, I felt these happy hormones and I thought, oh, oh, oh, oh, I want to do that. I want to do that. I like the idea of getting up in the morning and going out and doing what I’m good at, doing what I enjoy doing and then society takes care of me too.

So she appealed to a very personal longing inside of me and the next day I wrote out a promise to myself and I said I’m going to do this. I am going to simply live without a job. And all these ideas came to me and I can work for him and do that with her and help her with the project. And so I was all inspired and I went home and told my boyfriend, and he said, “Oh great. That’s quite decadent. You’re going to live off your savings for a year”. But I said, “Well, I’m not going to let you pop my balloon, this is not about money. You know anyone can do this with or without money and, well, I’ll do without them. I will prove it to you”.

So let’s observe what happened. We have the pre-boyfriend conversation, sabbatical, you know that we’re all kind of familiar with. And then we have the post-conversation, crazy idea. And I knew it was a crazy idea. So I said to myself, calm down. Take a couple of months to see if the idea sticks, and it did. After half a year it was mid 2009 I was still thrilled, I had found my Mount Everest that I wanted to climb. So I went ahead and within half a year I arranged to set up seven barter deals for food and for staying in my apartment, for going out to dance, for having a work space. And throughout 2010 my bank balance remained stable without an income coming in.

I love adventure. I love adventure. I’m also very thorough person and I enjoy my projects most if I get to prepare them meticulously. So I drafted a letter, I had approved it by three of my friends whose creative writings I very much appreciate. It was a letter to my project with barter partners. I got my favorite stationery and I invented a whole new concept of the CV, added it to the letter and I sent it out to the barter partners and then I would call them up and see if they were willing to see me and have a discussion with me. And to my great surprise, most of them said yes. Even a big company like [Nickel], energy supplier said, “OK we’ll supply you with a year’s gas and electricity, and you will do a research project for us that will help us market our green products”.