Living in a van: Lessons from a road less travelled | Jenny Tasker | TEDxUniversityofBristol

[Music] [Applause] under each other a little more I think the world would be a better place would be a nicer place to live if we could focus on the similarities rather than the differences between us it would be great so I've been asked to speak here because I'm different to you guys I live in a van and you guys live in a house you guys live in a house and I get reminded of this difference between van and half every single time I meet a new person people ask where do you live and I reply Bristol actually and I have a van so I kind of move around and people step back and say oh you live in a van and there's a tonne of excitement of intrigue uncertainty and you asked me another question and I get ready for all the questions that you're gonna ask about how I live in my van one of the main questions is why I chose to do it and I never ever answer it the same way twice and that's because it's just a decision that reflects me and Who I am so I'm going to try and take you on a little journey so that you can understand me and my decisions and I hope that it might make you make you see your decisions and your life a little bit differently to stand on this red spot and explain to you guys what makes me me is difficult think about it if you got asked to stand here what makes you you what makes you make those decisions in your life what's important to you in your life it's a difficult task and please think of it throughout to understand why I am the way I am you definitely have to understand my family I wanna fall with three older brothers and a maid and an amazing mum my mum spent a lot of time on the roads and not in a glamorous or sexy way she might want me to credit her travels across Europe on a motorbike in a bikini before she had four children but if you add up the mileage the time spent on the road after having the children is definitely a lot more she's devoted a huge amount of her life taking us to strange places at strange times in the night in cars that break down and overheat on motorways one of the most common journeys we used to make was taking my brothers to roller hockey training an hour-long drive probably made at least twice a week there was one weekend where we dropped them off at a service station and someone else gave them a lift me and mum had two days of freedom I don't remember much of the weekend I was only seven but I do remember mum waking me up a strange hour in the night and bundling me up and putting me into the car next to a duvet and a couple of carrier bags of clothes I think she said we were going to France and I fell asleep as soon as the car started I'm a very heavy and good sleeper you get practice stuffed up next to old hockey kit that smells of sweat and between two big brothers the next thing I know we're in a ferry carpark the clangs and crunches of the lorries and that horrible dirty metallic smell that's disgusting but I love because you know you're about to go up on deck and breathe in the fresh air and we do we go up on deck and we say goodbye to England and watch the wake and then we go and warm up with a hot chick hot chocolate downstairs I think we went back into the car and then I think I fell asleep again and then we wake up in another car park this time we're outside a French cafe a quiet French cafe which again I don't remember too well but I think the walls were yellow and there were lots of funny paintings pinned up on them I ordered the pate even though I don't really like pate but when in France I think you're supposed to order pate and I finished it up and we were on holiday enjoying a meal in a French cafe I help Mom fold down the seats in the back of the car that night and we curled up in the boot under the duvet and I just remember being so excited and tired from seeing these new things being in France being on holiday and I speak to mom about it now and she says the trip didn't really work out we never got to the house that we were supposed to get to we couldn't find on the map and actually she had no idea where the ferry times so although the trip could be seen as a bit of a failure we didn't get to our destination I remember the important things the spontaneity the just just going when you've got the opportunity and not really caring if you know the ferry times or not just driving down to Dover and going and these are things that mum has completely accidentally given to me and I think things that have allowed me to live in my van she's not all spontaneity and carefreeness though when I first called her and said mum I'm gonna live in a van she said no don't don't do that don't do that and I said why not I've got an older brother my eldest brother lived in a van for two years as well I said reflected it why can't I do it and she said I'll put your and I said don't you dare say I'm a girl imagine if someone said that to you you tell them to piss off and you probably want to do it more and we just laughed together and started talking about the plans of what it would be like and now have this it wasn't always that cozy though it took a lot of work to get it there those wooden panels that you've seen on the sides took four days of taking old pallets apart two days of very lonely sanding in a garage two days of clearing up all the dust from the sanding fair a few days of Danish Oil and God knows how many screws or days to actually get it all up on the wall this is the earliest picture I have and unfortunately it tells a bit of a rosy tale because it took me three weeks to get it to that point but I want to tell you about one particular day one particular feat when I made my van and that was the day of the angle grinder so I decided against all adult fire-safe advice that I wanted a log burner in my van to keep me warm through the winter you may have noticed for the observant of you that it's not there and that's not because I've listened to the advice it's because I've not yet had the time so log burner I need a half for the log burner I go out and I buy myself some secondhand quarry tiles and they're all beautiful and rustic I clean them up and I need to cut them to size so I go out to B&Q and I get my masonry cutting disk get it on my angle grinder safety goggles on I'm in the porch I'm ready to go and mum warns me that her ex-husband has been in that porch before trying to cut quarry tiles got very red sweaty swore a lot and just ended up with crap tiles at the end of the day and I thought how do it anyway we'll see how it goes so the first one to make a few cuts going all right and it cracks the ones bare has gone so I take a moment I go back to the books I consult YouTube and apparently if you let the tiles get too hot then they crack so this time I take my time and I get through them I get through the first the second the fourth and then I brought them in and I have this this is my heart without the log burner and I don't know whether you like it I think it looks quite pretty I'm very proud of the little square in the middle actually that was that was pretty cool but that half to me is an achievement it's a story and it was just a fantastic day of accomplishment making that but it's not all success stories there are lots of awkward moments difficult things that I get living in the van one of the most difficult and cumbersome things is when it comes to charging my letter battery you can see it bottom left that ledger battery powers all my lights and I can charge my phone with it I charged that battery in the university buildings I have to take it to a main supply that battery is also 25 kilograms the first day I took it in I'd bought myself a wheelie suitcase from the charity shop I didn't realize it had one wheel that was broken I was basically dragging a canvas sack through the leafy streets into beacon house with 25 kilograms in it trying to do it inconspicuously I get into the library I know I like fumble around and drop a pen and then try and plug it in at the mains and conspicuously and then the child has got a fan on it but no one noticed everyone got on and I had my battery charged but since I take it in a box and I tend to take it at times when the library is quiet I've had lots of funny moments in the library a particularly memorable one was having to go in to wash my face which had full black and white face paint on it from a fancy-dress party the night before and these are the kind of moments where you think oh I'm gonna look weird I'm gonna look stupid but then you do them and it's actually incredibly liberating because it just doesn't really matter what you look like when you wash in the library toilet people see you in strange situations some of you actually might have seen me washing my face before the talk and it you realize it doesn't matter these these pretenses that we put up when we go to work they don't matter so are the humbling moments definitely include going to the toilet it's normally the third question people ask to the toilet it's pretty simple 95% of the time I'll go to the toilet in a toilet there's toilets everywhere there's probably about 20 in this building there in pubs there at friends houses and normally you can get someone in time Oh seriously I'm actually quite good at holding holding my butter it strained the other 10% well five of that outside sometimes it's nice to be outside so you feel pretty human pretty humbling I've got the squat position down the other 5% sometimes when it's daylight and it would scare people if you just decided to take away outside this guy who would have known that a peanut butter pot is the perfect size for a morning we so that's one practicality over another practicality where do you shower I have a gym membership I try and shower at the gym but I don't like the gym so maybe I shower a little bit less than I should I do carry all of my shower stuff around with me all of the time my toothpaste my shampoo my conditioner my soap and you realize when you're carrying toiletries around with you all day every day that you need a lot less I am NOT carrying moisturizer around of me and makeup is incredibly cumbersome and difficult to keep altogether so I've cut down in that sense but I'm not a stoic I still love my clothes and I have all of my favorite ones with me often I end up coming out a little bit mismatched because I don't have a mirror in the van but normally by the time you get to a mirror you spent maybe half a day doing other things speaking to other people and again they didn't give a about what you look like whether you can wear orange with orange with orange hair it doesn't matter so they're the material things that I've cut down on but more importantly the van has taught me to kind of stream life streamline the decisions in my life to live my life in a certain way where I only do the things that I really really want to do the things that show and express who I am I want you to think about where you live I've been speaking as if I live in a van I don't live in a van I go to sleep in a van I store my things in a van I get dressed in a van and that's really about it I live in Bristol in this amazing city and when I'm really living I'm making connections with all of the amazing people that make up this city when I'm going to my Cuban dance class or when I'm working at the pub or when I'm just seeing random random people walking down the street and smiling at them are you really living when you're in your house in your dressing gown watching TV or are you living when you're outside of your house doing the things that matter to you so I park in the places where the important things in my life are and I very rarely leave Bristol even though I have the opportunity to I've been on one little holiday and it was fantastic I love the solitude I love the beach but I came back and having the option to go and come back and having the option to stay makes me realise why I stay here it makes me realize the things that are actually important to me my friends my family my university course my work I want you to think about why you stay what is it that keeps you here what are the things that are important to you so imagine you had to stand on the red dot and tell me about you do your decisions your actions the changes you make in your life really Express who you are and where you come from or have you just kind of been corralled along in the stream of things and you don't really know how you got to where you are and if you're scared of of making a change a big change and people will ask really difficult questions to you embrace them because answering the questions is the fun bit getting over the difficulties and the embarrassing moments is the bit that gives you the fantastic stories it makes you lead a richer life so I'm not saying make a big change and go and live in a van but I am saying go out of this room and really question your life and why you live it in the way that you do and I promise if you do that you'll start living a much richer life [Applause] [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 5,679

Rating: 4.7619047 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Adventure, Change, Decision making, Failure, Family, Identity, Individualism, Innovation, Life Development, Life Hack, Travel

Id: olQeoW_wzio

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 15 2018