Tim and Angel Mathis are married nurses and lapsed Christians who enjoy hiking, running, and traveling very long distances. Tim is the author of The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life (timmathiswrites.com) and Angel teaches investment skills to fellow nurses (learn.nursesinvesting.com).
Tim begins by sharing his feelings about me stealing the term “dirtbag rich”—which he coined in his 2019 book—and transforming it into a larger concept that emphasizes purposeful work.
Tim finds his own purpose as a mental health nurse and book writer. He tells the story of losing his dad in the middle of a Pacific Crest Trail hike, the period of hedonistic dirtbag drifting that followed, and how he went from evangelical Christian, to Episcopal minister, to fully leaving the faith. He describes how ultrarunning and thru-hiking offered a quasi-religious new community, sense of belonging, and positive emotions. “Nature is my spirituality now,” Tim says—and this is a “deeply American thing.”
We then hear from Angel—the financial brain in the marriage—who shares the story of getting laughed at by a financial advisor early in their careers. The couple ended up doing everything the advisor didn’t think possible: buying a house, getting graduate degrees, making work optional after age 35, and traveling 3-6 months each year.
Angel’s sense of financial security comes from taking a hard look at the numbers each month, using the same method that she teaches to other nurses. As a nurse practitioner, she enjoys helping many patients in a short amount of time—just as long as she’s working part-time. Raised Catholic and later baptized Protestant, Angel laughs about enjoying a diversified spiritual portfolio, even as nature-oriented rituals have replaced the religious ones (e.g., long runs on Sundays instead of church). She reflects on how easy it was to build new friendships in their thirties through long-term traveling hiking, where low time pressure allows deep relationships to blossom.
Find Tim and Angel on Instagram: @dirtbagguide / @nursesinvestingforwealth
Full transcript: dirtbagrich.com/timangel
Recorded in November 2024.
AI Notes
This is an AI-generated summary and transcript. Typos and mistakes exist!
Summary
This podcast episode features Tim and Angel Mathis, discussing their journey to becoming ‘dirtbag rich’ and their experiences with outdoor adventures, work-life balance, and personal growth. Tim Mathis, author of ‘The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life’, coined the term ‘dirtbag rich’, which refers to making enough money quickly to live comfortably while maintaining time and career flexibility. The couple shares their transition from traditional careers to a more flexible lifestyle, working part-time as nurses and pursuing their passions. They discuss the impact of Tim’s father’s death during their Pacific Crest Trail hike, which led to a reevaluation of their life priorities. The conversation also touches on their departure from organized religion and how outdoor activities, particularly trail running, filled the void left by this change. Angel, described as the ‘numbers person’ in the relationship, explains her approach to financial management and how it supports their lifestyle. The couple reflects on the friendships they’ve formed through their adventures and how their perspective on work, life, and meaning has evolved over time. Throughout the discussion, they emphasize the importance of finding balance, contributing meaningfully to society, and pursuing a life that aligns with one’s values and desires.
Chapters
Introduction to Tim and Angel Mathis and the concept of ‘dirtbag rich’
The podcast begins with the host introducing Tim and Angel Mathis. Tim explains the origin of the term ‘dirtbag rich’, which he coined in his book ‘The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life’. He describes it as a way to make enough money quickly to live comfortably and do what you want, with time and career flexibility. Tim compares the concept to becoming a grandparent, where you can enjoy seeing your ‘word children’ flourish without the responsibility.
00:02:14 Defining ‘dirtbag rich’ and its implementation
Tim elaborates on the concept of ‘dirtbag rich’, explaining that it involves making a lot of money quickly to live comfortably and do what you want. He contrasts it with traditional ‘dirtbaggery’, where people work low-paying jobs to support their outdoor pursuits. The ‘dirtbag rich’ approach allows for a more sustainable and comfortable lifestyle in the long term. The host adds that the real differentiating factor is how much time you can purchase with your effort, allowing for extended periods of freedom and play.
00:07:47 Tim and Angel’s journey to becoming ‘dirtbag rich’
Tim shares that he and Angel have been living a ‘dirtbag rich’ lifestyle for about nine years, since they were 35. They both work part-time, with Tim as a per diem nurse and Angel taking on various contracts and part-time jobs. This arrangement has allowed them to travel extensively, typically between three and six months each year outside of the COVID period. Tim emphasizes that they feel they have struck a balance, with jobs that contribute to the world while still allowing them to pursue their passions and travel dreams.
00:11:02 The impact of Tim’s work as a mental health nurse
Tim discusses his work as a mental health nurse, explaining that while it can be challenging, he feels it’s necessary and contributes positively to society. He describes the subjective element of his job, where he interacts with people in low places and helps them get to a better place. Tim also mentions his writing career, which, while not as financially lucrative, provides another avenue for contribution and meaning.
00:14:04 The influence of personal tragedy on their lifestyle choices
Tim recounts the tragic event of his father’s death from glioblastoma while they were hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2015. This experience profoundly impacted their decision-making, reinforcing the idea that life is uncertain and they should make the most of their time. It led to a year of travel after completing the trail and a radical reorientation of their life, embracing a more flexible work-life balance.
00:19:05 Balancing adventure and meaning in life
Tim reflects on the challenge of finding meaning in constant travel and adventure. He describes feeling a need to do something useful after about six months of traveling in Latin America. This led him to return to part-time nursing and pursue writing, which provided a sense of purpose and contribution beyond just experiencing new places.
00:23:44 The role of religion and its departure in their lives
Tim discusses his background in fundamentalist Christianity and his gradual loss of faith. He explains how leaving religion was like a divorce, affecting every aspect of his life. The outdoors, particularly trail running, became a replacement for the structure and community that religion had previously provided. Angel adds her perspective, mentioning her Catholic background and her earlier departure from organized religion.
00:34:26 Angel’s perspective on financial management and lifestyle
Angel, described as the ‘numbers person’ in the relationship, explains her approach to financial management. She discusses her ‘money method’, which takes about an hour each month and allows her to see their financial progress even while working less than part-time and traveling extensively. Angel emphasizes the importance of feeling secure in their finances, which allows them to continue exploring and pursuing meaningful work.
00:45:01 Angel’s work and its impact
Angel shares her work as a nurse practitioner and how she feels it genuinely helps people. She also mentions her work helping other nurses create sustainable lives through financial planning, which she believes is valuable not only to the nurses but also to their patients. Angel describes this as fulfilling and impactful work.
00:48:12 Reflections on outdoor experiences and spirituality
Angel discusses her relationship with the outdoors, describing it as bringing a sense of centeredness, calm, and peace. She reflects on how being in nature reminds her of her small place in the universe, which helps maintain perspective in their work as nurses. Angel sees outdoor experiences as a way to not take life too seriously while still doing one’s best and having fun.
00:54:31 The evolution of their social life and friendships
Angel and Tim discuss how their social life evolved after transitioning to their current lifestyle. They mention maintaining supportive friendships from their previous life while forming new, deep connections through their travels and outdoor adventures. Tim adds that these new friendships, formed in intense situations like long-distance hiking, are uniquely tight and wouldn’t have been possible on a conventional life path.
Transcript
Blake Boles 00:00
Tim Mathis, Angel Mathis, welcome to Dirt Bag Rich.
Angel Mathis 00:05
Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.
Tim Mathis 00:08
I am as well, trying not to talk over Angel.
Blake Boles 00:11
Tim, I’m going to start with you and my question is, what does it feel like for someone to steal a term that you created and then turn it into a book and a podcast?
Tim Mathis 00:25
Yeah, you’ve taken you’ve lifted dirtbag rich from the dirtbags guide to life and I am pretty sure that I like coin that term I was trying to think back and think if if I like seen it somewhere on the the internet or something because you know How the world is like stuff just ends up in your head but I’m pretty sure I coined that term and it kind of feels like I The analogy I’ve used is it’s kind of like I don’t have kids But I have word children in my books.
Tim Mathis 00:54
And so it’s kind of like becoming a grandparent, right? it’s you you you’re just seeing your your child flourish out in the world and and and Then it has a kid and you can kind of like just hope for the best for that grandkid You don’t have to it’s all you know, it’s all care and no responsibility.
Tim Mathis 01:11
I Will do my best
Blake Boles 01:13
I’ll do my best to be a responsible parent. Yeah.
Tim Mathis 01:16
Yeah, I don’t have to care for it, I’m just happy to see it growing and flourishing.
Blake Boles 01:23
Well, I went back and double check the details. I downloaded the Kindle version of your book, The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life in August 2020 when I was doing my first cycle trip through Europe that made me fall in love with bike touring in Europe.
Blake Boles 01:39
And I’m pretty sure I was somewhere in Switzerland taking an extended break next to a lake when I finished reading the book on the Kindle. And what stood out to me from it by and large was this concept of dirtbag rich.
Blake Boles 01:56
There’s lots of other gems and just solid advice. And you have hundreds of great reviews on Amazon for the book. And so people should read the book regardless. But for those who are curious about how you define this term originally, what does it mean to be dirtbag rich?
Tim Mathis 02:14
Yeah, so I think the way I, you know, basically when I was writing the book, I was looking around at the different ways that people figure out how to basically center the things that they love to do in life, even if those things don’t pay them, and specifically focusing on the outdoor community, people who are biking, hiking, trail running, all those sorts of things.
Tim Mathis 02:39
And I realize they’re kind of different categories of the way people did things. And dirtbag rich was to me kind of the ultimate goal in this kind of situation where you make a lot of money quickly. So you can both live comfortably and do the things that you want to.
Tim Mathis 03:01
And it involves a lot of time flexibility and involves a lot of career flexibility so that you don’t have to be sort of tied down to a specific place or job all the time. And in the end, what it produces, I guess, is balance and freedom in a way that, for instance, traditional dirtbaggery where, you know, you go work.
Tim Mathis 03:26
I would say that, you know, there’s a lot of through hikers out there like this or climbers where they just go and work in low paying, you know, low sort of entry level jobs and scrape together the basics so that they can go through hike or whatever.
Tim Mathis 03:40
This is kind of like that, but in a more professional realm where you can actually make enough to sustain across the long term in a way that’s comfortable and doesn’t produce massive amounts of anxiety about what’s going to happen, you know, 20 years down the road when, you know, you’ve got bills to pay or you’ve got, you know, health issues or whatever.
Tim Mathis 04:01
So I think you’ve actually, you’ve refined the term pretty well, I think. You’ve probably, at this point, thought about it more than I have.
Blake Boles 04:12
Yeah. Well, someone had to crack the ice here. I feel like the real differentiating factors, like how much time you can purchase with how much effort you invest and like a ski bum who’s, who’s waiting tables or painting houses in the off season is maybe buying, you know, if they’re doing well, maybe they’re buying an equal amount of time relevant to the time that they’re working to then go play.
Blake Boles 04:37
But the way that you seem to define it is you can work a short amount of time and then live for quite a while off of that income and the savings, especially if you combine it with the super power of frugality.
Tim Mathis 04:52
Yeah. And when I first sort of came up with this concept, I was thinking of two specific people, this couple who’s the Urbanskis, who we know who, they worked in finance for a couple of years, and then they took like three years off.
Tim Mathis 05:05
And then they did that again, and they took like five years off. And so they were making a whole lot of money in a brief amount of time, and then traveling for big chunks of time. One of the things I think you’ve done with the concept that is both interesting and right in the spirit of kind of the dirtbags guy to life is that you’ve pointed out that it’s not just about when you work, making a lot of money.
Tim Mathis 05:29
It’s also about when you work, enjoying it and feeling like you’re contributing something to the world. Those guys actually, they did not seem to like their work. And that was part of the reason that they wanted to take so much time off because they were trying to get away from it.
Tim Mathis 05:46
But I think you’re right in the way you’ve talked about it, the cracking the code is really about finding something that pays you well enough to do this stuff, but also feeling like it’s meaningful, like feeling like you’re not wasting that third of your life or whatever that you’re having to work paid work.
Blake Boles 06:05
I think I felt pretty turned off by the the fire movement. Financial independence retire early even though there’s tons of great ideas in there and Mr. Money Mustache is a very charismatic writer. It always felt like they were just not talking about the the quality of the work or whether you’re contributing anything that’s actually important to the world.
Blake Boles 06:28
It’s just work a high-pay job in finance or tech or law or something like that and just get to your number so you can retire early and then and then begin your your life and that always just kind of rubbed me the wrong way and the approach that you were taking in the book and the people you were profiling it was really about enjoying your time now and also building up something so that you have more runway in the future.
Blake Boles 06:57
It really feels like the modern version of you can have it all.
Tim Mathis 07:03
Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I think that’s the goal, isn’t it? The goal in life is to enjoy all of it. It’s not to spend 20 years hating your life so that you can spend the next 20 enjoying it. There’s got to be a better way, right?
Tim Mathis 07:17
And I think there is. And I think that that’s, yeah, I think that’s the really intriguing thing about this concept and the really intriguing thing about this sort of whole project that you’re working on is there are people out there who figured this out that they don’t, they feel like they have a balance at a younger age and they don’t hate the work they’re doing and they feel like their life is pretty good.
Tim Mathis 07:41
There are those people out there.
Blake Boles 07:43
Tim, are you dirtbag rich?
Tim Mathis 07:47
I think that I think at this stage that we can definitely say that we are dirt bag rich. It’s it’s I don’t think that I felt like I was when we started doing what we’re doing, which it’s been about. So just for a little background, I suppose for listeners, it’s probably been about nine years now since we kind of with our normal life until we were until we were about thirty five, both of us worked relatively in relatively normal ways.
Tim Mathis 08:20
You know, we were either working or studying pretty much our whole adult life. But after thirty five, we really haven’t done that. There were a couple of years during covid when we were working more, but but outside of that, we have both worked.
Tim Mathis 08:34
You know, part time, I’m I’m her dam as a nurse, which means that I kind of make my own schedule and I go in and fill holes and that sort of thing. And I go in when I want to and I don’t when I don’t want to.
Tim Mathis 08:47
Angel has worked a mix of contracts, part time jobs where she can make her own schedule and similar kind of kind of roles to what I’m doing. So we’ve both had a ton of time flexibility for about 10 years and both of us have have over the year probably worked about half time in those 10 years are.
Tim Mathis 09:10
You know, we have done a ton of stuff. We’ve traveled kind of between three and six months, pretty much every year outside of covid. And we have essentially we talk about this sometimes, like, is there anything that you want that you don’t have?
Tim Mathis 09:26
And if so, what do we need to change to get it? And it’s been pretty consistent when we return to that question that now we’re doing what we want to. I’m like, I actually can’t think of anything that would change.
Tim Mathis 09:38
So I definitely think that we have kind of struck that balance. We’ve got the we’ve both got jobs that we feel like are contributing something to the world, even if we don’t always love to go to work, they don’t.
Tim Mathis 09:55
It doesn’t feel like it’s a bad thing that we’re doing and it feels like it’s productive. It feels like we’re contributing. And outside of that, we’re you know, we’re taking all these these trips that we’ve always dreamed about where I’m doing a lot of biking.
Tim Mathis 10:07
We’re doing a lot of hiking where we’re, you know, I’m I’m riding a ton. She’s building a business just as a. You know, as a thing she’s always wanted to do. So it feels like we’ve it does feel like at this stage, we definitely fit the category.
Blake Boles 10:28
So we’re going to talk with Angel in the second half of the episode, but for now I just left to drill in a little bit more to the the meaning question regarding your work, Tim. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about what you do and what convinces you that you’re having a positive impact?
Blake Boles 10:45
I think a lot of us like to believe by default that we’re doing something that’s that’s good, but you know the question is always are we fooling ourselves? And so what’s your evidence for feeling like you are doing something important and impactful?
Tim Mathis 11:02
back it up, eh? Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, I’m a mental health nurse, and what I feel about my job is that there are definitely days when it just feels like kind of a big disaster, which I think any nurse will tell you that that is part of the experience.
Tim Mathis 11:26
But I also feel like it is work that needs to be done. It’s not work that if every nurse just quit their job, the world would not be a better place. It would be a big disaster, right? So you’re part of something that the world needs.
Tim Mathis 11:44
I think that in my job, there’s a sort of subjective element where you interact with people every day. And my job, I spend a lot of time talking to people who are really in really low places in life.
Tim Mathis 11:59
And generally speaking, they get to a better place. And generally speaking, I think that the work I do helps them to get to that point. So there’s sort of an objective, you know, theoretical like, yes, the world needs nurses, this is this is something that society is not, you know, I’m not doing harm to society, I’m contributing to it.
Tim Mathis 12:27
And then there’s the more subjective, I feel like when I talk to people, and it’s a very sort of interactive kind of work, I feel like as I, you know, as I have these day to day experiences, it just, it feels like you’re making a difference.
Tim Mathis 12:43
So I mean, that’s, that’s pretty airy fairy, I guess. But but yeah, I mean, there’s that side of it. And then there’s the other side of it. I mean, I am a nurse, I’m also a writer, I don’t make a ton of money off of writing, but it’s, you know, I’ve made some money off of writing.
Tim Mathis 13:00
So I feel like I can include that as part of as part of what I do professionally. As you know, writing can feel very sort of like you’re just in your closet, doing your own thing. And you release your your sort of work into the world and kind of hope that the people are getting something out of it.
Tim Mathis 13:22
Every once in a while, you get a bit of feedback. And, you know, every once in a while, somebody picks up on your ideas, creates a podcast and writes a book from it so that, you know, never makes you feel like you, you’re doing something that contributes.
Tim Mathis 13:35
But no, so it’s yeah, it’s there’s little bits of feedback.
Blake Boles 13:39
Just to stay on the topic of meaning, you wrote pretty openly in your book about the tragedy that you faced while you were hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and then how that kind of fueled and drove future travels and adventures in maybe a questionably healthy way.
Blake Boles 13:59
Can you talk a bit about that part of your life?
Tim Mathis 14:04
Yeah, it’s a big question that, you know, I could go on about for the next half hour. I’ll try and talk concisely. So basically what you’re referencing is that my dad passed away right literally when we passed the halfway point of the Pacific Crest Trail, we got a call that basically my dad was going to die.
Tim Mathis 14:29
He was diagnosed with glioblastoma, which is the most aggressive form of brain cancer and the most deadly and also the most common, unfortunately. He got diagnosed with it just before we were supposed to start the trail.
Tim Mathis 14:45
And he initially had a longer prognosis that kind of led us to all as a family decided that we would continue to go on the trail. And they, my dad actually, my dad and mom actually dropped us off at the Southern terminus.
Tim Mathis 15:02
So he was well enough at that point to be a part of the experience. They met us along the way, but then yeah, things progressed really rapidly, unfortunately. And he died. We got off trail and he died about two weeks after we got off trail in 2015.
Tim Mathis 15:19
So yeah, I mean, that was obviously that’s one of those experiences that just kind of punches you in the face. He’d been, you know, formally completely healthy, healthy. And three months later he was gone.
Tim Mathis 15:34
So what that did, I think at that stage, because we were already in the middle of this massive life event that had required us to quit our jobs, you know, rent out our house, pack up our things, do all those do all that stuff.
Tim Mathis 15:49
It basically hit us right at a time when we were completely free to make decisions about the future. It also hit us right at a time when we were, this is really our sort of dirtbag bootcamp, the PCT was.
Tim Mathis 16:03
And so we were learning to live on next to nothing. And so we realized through both the trail and through my dad’s passing that one, we could do a whole lot of things with the resources we had. And two, we had no guarantees that our life was going to, you know, that we were going to have long, healthy lives that would allow us to do these things we wanted to in the future.
Tim Mathis 16:32
And so it just drove a lot of decision making. After my dad died, we got back on trail and we did finish it out. And it was, I mean, that was like, that feels like a real dark night of the soul kind of experience.
Tim Mathis 16:49
That second half of the PCT to me, it feels, you know, when I think back on it, I, you know, it feels like a black tunnel in a lot of ways, despite the fact that it was just, you know, really gorgeous and the experience of a lifetime and all that.
Tim Mathis 17:02
It was emotionally just a really hard time. But what it did in that second half is gave us a ton of time to think about what was next and what was next ended up being another year travel after that. And then a pretty radical reorientation of our life.
Tim Mathis 17:21
That was when you, I mentioned before that we kind of never really went, we’ve, for the last nine years, we haven’t really been doing full time work. We’ve been having a much more flexible life. And that was, you know, that was definitely a key part of the decision making process is going through that experience.
Tim Mathis 17:42
And it’s just that basic thing of it’s a real direct object lesson when one of your parents dies young that nothing’s guaranteed. And so you better make the most of it now. That’s, that’s part of the same thing you’re talking about with fire.
Tim Mathis 17:55
It’s like, I’m not going to spend the next 15 years miserable because I don’t know if I have 15 years. So that, you know, I think that sort of being confronted with death can be a really, it can be a thing that drives big decisions earlier, earlier in life, if it happens to.
Blake Boles 18:14
He also wrote about dirt bags who end up traveling and exploring kind of ad infinitum and in this more drifting meaningless way. So I’m quoting from the book here, the ski bump who drinks and skis not because it’s awesome, but because they can’t figure out anything else to do with their life is a real sad thing.
Blake Boles 18:37
And so it sounds like you were in Latin America for a year after the PCT. You were kind of being driven by the need to process, you know, your dad’s death. How did you escape kind of falling into that black hole that you described some dirt bags falling into of just perpetual exploration for exploration’s sake?
Tim Mathis 19:05
Yeah, this is a, man, this is getting heavy. So I do think this is a thing, right? I think that there’s this real magic about travel and adventure that can hit you and sweep you up and suck you in and get you sort of set on a track and making decisions that gets you centering your life on those things.
Tim Mathis 19:28
And then I also think that just if you’re not doing anything with that, it feels like hedonistic, basically, right? Like, eventually, after, for me, and this probably had to do with the fact of, you know, my dad having passed and that sort of thing.
Tim Mathis 19:45
So I already had a lot of negative emotions going on, a lot of intense sort of, you know, processing happening. But after about, you know, for me, after about six months of drifting around in Latin America, I just felt like I was just like, you know, walking around looking at pretty things and not really doing anything with it, right?
Tim Mathis 20:04
I was, you know, we were kind of sending reports back to friends and that sort of thing. So it just felt like, it just felt like, why am I doing this? You know, it’s nice, but there’s gotta be, you know, there’s gotta be something more I can do with this.
Tim Mathis 20:19
So for me, there are two things, I think, that I did to try and pull out of that. One was I realized, like, I needed to feel like I was doing something useful. I think that that’s a really, really good hack, right?
Tim Mathis 20:35
Like, if you feel like you’re doing something useful for other people, then you will probably be able to develop a sense of meaning out of that, right? So for me, the things were, it was going back part-time to nursing.
Tim Mathis 20:49
You know, it’s, nursing is hard and terrible, but also, yeah, you do get a sense, you do get a sense of meaning when you go to work a lot of days. And then also, I think, like, the other bit of it was deciding that I’m gonna write.
Tim Mathis 21:06
I, writing is a thing that I always wanted to do when I was a little kid. You know, I was a huge nerd, like, little reader when I was a kid, and always been kind of that person, and writing was always something I wanted to do, but never really felt like I could, or it wasn’t, like, you know, it wasn’t really a path that I had the luxury of going down, bills to pay and all that.
Tim Mathis 21:31
But when, you know, again, like, during that period, it was like, no, you know what? Actually, I’m gonna try and do this. I’m just gonna see what happens, and I’m gonna write. And so, that, across time, really developed into another bit of what provides life with meaning during these periods when, we still have, I still have tons and tons of free time, but during that free time, I feel like I’m doing things that are meaningful because I’m,
Tim Mathis 21:57
you know, I’m working on writing projects and doing this stuff that I get things out of, and I hope other people get things out of as well.
Blake Boles 22:07
I feel like you really just touched on the difference between someone who just wants to stop working, kind of escape the rat race, which is a very common dream. It’s almost part of the American mythology now, versus someone who wants to be a dirtbag or become dirtbag rich, and the latter person is striving towards something positive, and so that could be improving as an outdoors person.
Blake Boles 22:37
In your case, it’s continuing to nurse, even if it’s halftime, and writing and feeling like you’re somehow contributing, and I think this is what really, this is what a lot of people struggle with when they get some sort of financial windfall, or they exit from a company, or they try to do this early retirement thing.
Blake Boles 22:56
It’s like they go from kind of meaningless quirk into like meaningless drifting around the world and checking off bucket list items that seemed profound six months ago, and now you’re like, what am I doing in Cambodia?
Blake Boles 23:10
Why am I down here? It is pointless, and so that’s why I wanted to get you to share how you how you escaped that, because it’s, I feel like it’s somehow at the crux here. There’s one other thing I have to get you to talk about, Tim, which, and I’m just gonna ask the question very directly, did losing your faith connect to you becoming a dirtbag?
Blake Boles 23:35
Are these two narratives linked together, and can you please give us a little bit of backstory regarding the faith also?
Tim Mathis 23:44
God, this man, I don’t know, it’s death, losing faith in God, like, maybe, what’s this? These are the softballs, okay? I’m making it easy for you.
Angel Mathis 23:55
Yeah, yeah. The theme is meaning fullness.
Tim Mathis 23:57
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. That’s true. Um, yeah, no, these, these, you know, we’re getting right into the nitty gritty of it and I think it’s, it’s good cause it’s, yeah, I, I absolutely think this is huge, right?
Tim Mathis 24:08
I think that some of the reasons that people pursue this kind of alternative approach to life is that they’ve got this deep sense that something is not right and that there’s got to be a better way. Right.
Tim Mathis 24:22
And I feel like that was, so yeah, for just again, very brief backstory on a very big topic. I was raised in a, I was raised in a fundamentalist kind of Christian environment and really embraced it full on in my teenage years and then lost faith in my early twenties in that sort of expression of Christianity.
Tim Mathis 24:49
And then I for about a decade and fits and starts, I tried to make like progressive Christianity work sort of the, I was part of the Episcopal church and I was working towards becoming an Episcopal priest for a while.
Tim Mathis 25:05
And then that just kind of all burned down as well right when I, uh, right around when I turned 30 and I wrote a book about that. If people want to know that full story, it’s called, I hope I was wrong about eternal damnation, which I still think is a pretty good title.
Tim Mathis 25:22
And when that happened, I really think like the outdoors was kind of the thing that saved me, um, in this sort of literal figure of sense or whatever, because the thing is with, with a religion is like, it’s hard to explain to people outside of the religious world, but I think people who are in the religious world get it, that it essentially is your entire life, right?
Tim Mathis 25:46
It’s your, um, it’s your friend group. It’s your weekly structure. It’s your sort of way of thinking about the world. It’s your, uh, social time. It’s your, you know, it’s your, for me, because I was, I was working in the church, it was my career.
Tim Mathis 26:04
So it was literally like everything just burned down. And when that happens, it just screws you up, right? So it’s, it’s, um, it’s a divorce. Um, divorce is probably the most relatable analogy. Um, it’s, it’s got a lot of, it’s got a lot of other complicated nuances, but, but what happened after that is I needed something that felt good.
Tim Mathis 26:30
I needed to find a different sort of part of myself and different path. And we started, we started running directly after, I mean, it was like exactly the same time that I was quitting church, actually.
Tim Mathis 26:45
We, and we, we, we both left it together. Angel, um, if you want to get into the heavy stuff with her, you can, but she, um, she, uh, she’d probably checked out well before I had, because she was watching me go through all these miserable experiences and like, this is, this is dumb.
Tim Mathis 27:00
We need to leave. Um, so she’d probably checked out before me. And so by the time I left, we just kind of fully, fully cut ourselves off from the religious world. And we started running at the same time and that quickly developed.
Tim Mathis 27:14
We were in Seattle and it lived right up the road from, uh, actually the shoe shop that figured, uh, prominently in born to run, if anybody’s read that book. And we actually latched onto some of the, the folks who were kind of around the edges of that book.
Tim Mathis 27:34
And we got it. So what that meant is we got really into trail running. We’ve got really into ultra running and that really became the structure and center of our life. It gave us, um, you know, it gave us, it’s how we met a big new friend group.
Tim Mathis 27:48
It’s how we sort of reestablish some of that sort of weekly structure. Instead of going to church, we’re going on long runs on Sundays. Um, instead of, you know, going to like, um, you know, after work, instead of, instead of going to churches, we were going to the mountains outside of Seattle and, and it provided a structure.
Tim Mathis 28:11
I mean, just also like just produced a lot of really positive feelings at a time when I was having a lot of negative feelings, you know, there’s, there’s something true about the like exercise produces positive emotions.
Tim Mathis 28:23
And so diving fully into it, I think, I do think a lot of people who get really extreme in outdoor sports. There’s a lot of us, a lot of them who are coping with something, right? They’re coping with a lot of intense life experiences in their past or whatever.
Tim Mathis 28:39
And they’ve got a lot of anxiety or whatever. And so you use the outdoors as a way to regulate that. And it works. I mean, it’s it for me, it worked. It put us on a much better path. I feel like, you know, I’m almost 15 years out from that now.
Tim Mathis 28:58
And I feel like my life has been dramatically improved for having gotten sucked into the outdoors, trail running advanced into a lot of other directions with through hiking and getting into paddling and a bit of cycling and that sort of thing.
Tim Mathis 29:13
So it really has been a thing that I think that, yeah, is I’m really glad that we found that so shortly after we left religion.
Blake Boles 29:27
Have you ever gone so far as to call nature or wilderness your religion or your church?
Tim Mathis 29:33
I mean, because I, I just, I feel like I don’t want to, this is going to sound bad, but I don’t want to demean nature that way. No, I, because I, so I definitely think that nature is sort of my spirituality now, right?
Tim Mathis 29:59
Like going outside is, and, and going for a walk, you know, or, or going to the hills or whatever is, is sort of my expression of spirituality. I think that that’s actually a deeply American thing too.
Tim Mathis 30:14
It’s one of the things I’ve started to realize is like, this is part of what helps me feel some positive feelings towards my, my sort of cultural background as well as that there’s this deep vein of like, you know, wilderness as being this transcendent sacred place that I think of as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to see as like, this is actually a cultural expression as well.
Tim Mathis 30:38
It’s a pretty universal thing, but I think that it’s a thing that connects me with my Americanness as well. And the, yeah, I’ll leave it at that, but yeah.
Blake Boles 30:52
I agree that this idea of being a dirtbag who’s totally dedicated to being in the outdoors, there’s a reason that its cultural center is the Western United States. There’s many reasons that we could spend 60 minutes talking about those reasons, but instead I want to hit you with one final question, Tim.
Blake Boles 31:12
It’s actually an easy one, and then we’ll hand it over to Angel. So you’ve written three books, unless, is it four books? Tell me what you’ve written and tell me what you’re working on writing in the future.
Tim Mathis 31:27
Yeah. Yeah, I’ve written three books. So the first book I wrote was that was the memoir about leaving religion called I Hope I Was Wrong About Eternal Damnation, which also is kind of a travel book because huge amounts of the reason that I ended up outside of the religion I was raised with was that I traveled a lot and I got exposed to a lot of the world that kind of blew my mind.
Tim Mathis 31:54
Um, so that was the first one. The second one was The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life, which, uh, yeah, if you’re listening to this podcast, I’m sure you would, you will like that book. You should check that one out.
Tim Mathis 32:04
Uh, so maybe self-explanatory from the title. The third book I wrote is a guidebook to the Camino de Santiago, which is, uh, the Camino was also, it’s funny, if you know anything about the Camino de Santiago, you know that it’s historically religious pilgrimage.
Tim Mathis 32:23
It’s a trip that I took, Angel and I took as we were processing leaving religion and it kind of cemented that decision. So it kind of did the opposite of what you would expect. So I wrote a book that’s, it’s about how to have a pilgrimage really, um, specifically focused on the Camino.
Tim Mathis 32:40
It’s called The Camino for the Rest of Us. Next projects, I’ve always got multiple irons in the fire, but the, I’m going to release a book of short travel stories, probably early next year. I don’t know what the title is going to be at, but that’ll, that’ll be coming soon.
Tim Mathis 32:57
And then, um, I have this sort of developing idea for a book about through hiking that I think will be the next project that is kind of going to be wrestling a little bit with some of the stuff we’ve talked about already, actually about what makes through hiking so transformative for so many people and kind of putting through hiking and it’s, uh, in its lineage along like traditional concepts like pilgrimage and that sort of thing.
Tim Mathis 33:30
So, so I’m wrestling around with what that’s going to look like. It’s the project that I feel like I’m coming up.
Blake Boles 33:37
For people who want to follow along and find out when your new writing comes out, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Tim Mathis 33:45
Yeah, follow me, go to my website and sign up for the mailing list at timmathiswrites.com or go to my Instagram, which is at dirtbagguide. There’s no S because somebody had already taken dirtbag’s guide, so at dirtbagguide.
Blake Boles 34:05
Thanks so much, Tim. Angel, welcome to the show.
Angel Mathis 34:09
Thank you. This is a tough act to follow.
Blake Boles 34:13
Well I’ll make it easy for you to get started. In which ways was Tim lying over simplifying or otherwise glossing over the truth?
Angel Mathis 34:26
Um, I think he was very truthful and I felt like I was like, Oh no, he didn’t mention how important the experience was when his dad died when we were on the PCT, but he came back to it. So I feel like the story is complete.
Angel Mathis 34:44
I don’t have to add that in.
Blake Boles 34:48
I’ve been told that you’re the numbers person in this relationship and that Tim actually doesn’t know anything about the finances. He just swipes his credit card and food appears and you’re the one who makes sure that the engine keeps running.
Blake Boles 35:03
Yeah. Tell me about how your relationship works, how you work together as a team to, you know, you’ve had this, this long history of doing cool adventures with each other, especially ones where you’re around each other all the time through hiking.
Blake Boles 35:19
And I think there’s a lot of people who just want to know how relationships like this work. So tell me what it’s like from your perspective.
Angel Mathis 35:29
The really funny thing about us is that I might know everything about the numbers behind the scenes, but whenever Tim and I are out doing things, traveling, exploring, I never pay. So Tim will be at the cash register paying, and I’m like wandering around somewhere, checking out the shop or looking and seeing what I can find.
Angel Mathis 35:54
And so Tim spends all the money, but I know everything that he spends it on. And I’m usually part of the reason that he’s spending too.
Blake Boles 36:07
So how else do you work together? What are your differences? What are your strengths? How do you compensate and complement each other?
Angel Mathis 36:16
Well, we have such a, I think, a really strong partnership in the sense that we balance each other out so well. So Tim is very thoughtful. He’s a deep thinker. He writes amazing books. He writes in a way that brings people into his world.
Angel Mathis 36:43
And I am whimsical, fly by the seat of my pants. I tend to dream up the weirdest ideas and then pitch them to Tim and see what he thinks. And then somehow we always find ourselves on these weird, crazy adventures.
Angel Mathis 37:05
And I feel like that’s a really good mix. Would you agree?
Tim Mathis 37:13
Yeah, I mean, I think you say your whimsical, but I mean, Blake’s original point, you, you are super organized when it comes to you and you always have been when it comes to finances. And that’s been the foundation of what’s allowed us to live this way.
Angel Mathis 37:31
Yeah, that’s true.
Blake Boles 37:33
Hmm, let me dig into your, your deep history here, Angel. Uh, when was a high point in your financial health as a couple and when was a low point? When were you feeling the most insecure or anxious about the future?
Angel Mathis 37:55
Let’s start with a low so we can end on a high. So I would say a low point for us was when we had both graduated university the first time around and we didn’t have anything. We had negative numbers.
Angel Mathis 38:18
We had even met with a financial advisor for help because neither of us are from generational wealth. Neither of us are from backgrounds where our families automatically know how to make money turn into more money.
Angel Mathis 38:35
So that is not where we came from. So we met with a financial advisor and we laid out our tiny accounts to her and described like, hey, we have thousands of dollars of student loan debt, but that’s okay.
Angel Mathis 38:52
We wanna buy a house and we wanna start investing. And she laughed in our faces and it was so embarrassing. We were like so humiliated. And I would say that was such a low point for us because here we are, we’ve both graduated college and we both feel like we are at the top of our game.
Angel Mathis 39:14
We’re gonna make income. And she’s like, you’re a nurse, right? Where are you gonna make money? Who’s gonna wanna loan money to you? And it was just so embarrassing. I just made this embarrassment bubble up from the inside of me.
Angel Mathis 39:33
My cheeks were hot, everything was hot. That was such a low point. Such a crush, such a blow because here we are thinking we’re gonna change our financial future. And we have somebody who we think knows how money works telling us you’re crazy if you think you’re changing your financial future.
Angel Mathis 39:52
That’s basically what it felt like. We went on from that to do all of the things that we wanted without her help. We did buy a house, we did work in our careers. We got graduate degrees and we went on to that from that and we were totally, well, I mean, we did great.
Angel Mathis 40:17
We basically made working optional from the time we were 35 years old. And I just think back to her in that moment. And as much as I still feel humiliated thinking about it and even telling you about it, I also feel kind of grateful because I think it strengthened our resolve to change our future for the better and really be cautious with our money and our spending.
Angel Mathis 40:46
And establish a lifelong habit of frugality, really.
Blake Boles 40:54
So you’ve been on this very part time work, lots of adventure path for about nine years now. I’m curious, what does long term security look and feel like to you, Angel, right now? How do you know and feel confident that you two as a couple are doing things right?
Blake Boles 41:18
You are set up for the future. You cannot worry so much. You can afford to not work full time, essentially. I feel like the anxiety of the uncertainty of the future drives so many people away from even accepting a great situation because something bad might happen.
Angel Mathis 41:39
Yes, that is so spot on and I will be completely honest that sometimes I feel that too. I think that I don’t know if it’s just my background or if this is an inherent human trait that I think I sometimes slip into this mindset of scarcity like I’m not going to have enough and I constantly have to push back on that.
Angel Mathis 42:12
And the way that I do that is very, very numbers focused. And so there’s two types of security that we could talk about. There’s like security with who I am and what I’m doing and am I doing the things that I want in life?
Angel Mathis 42:29
And then there’s financial security. And I really think that these two things can be completely separate. A lot of times we mix them together, but I will admit that when you know you have financial security, you feel a lot safer to pursue that other path of security.
Angel Mathis 42:50
So when it comes to us and when it comes to our relationship, sometimes I slip back into that scarcity mindset and the way that I can pull myself out of it is I go back to my exact numbers. I have a money method that I use and I use it every single month that takes me about one hour and I’m able to really see what is this coming from?
Angel Mathis 43:16
Do I have any reason to feel financially insecure? And if I do, what can I tweak within this method to get me out of that? Now that money method is I can give you the brief overview of it if that’s something you want to talk about, but we’ll just say that when I do that, I am able to see my even working less than part time, doing the things we want, traveling around the world every year, doing this each and every year,
Angel Mathis 43:51
the way it is set up, I continue to see our net worth climb. And this is when my mind of that person that met with a financial advisor all those years ago gets blown because I’m like, how is this possible?
Angel Mathis 44:08
How can I have done this for myself? But that’s how I pull myself. That’s how I feel secure in my finances and why I feel secure and safe to continue exploring and traveling and pursuing meaningful, not just adventures, meaningful work.
Blake Boles 44:33
I would love to maybe put a link or something more about your money method into the show notes. But for now, I’ve got a few more questions for you. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Tell me a bit about your work.
Blake Boles 44:47
And I want to also find out if you derive meaning and purpose from your work, if you feel like you’re having a meaningful impact, if you’re being useful to someone in a real way, not a self deceiving way.
Angel Mathis 45:01
Yeah, so I have really two things that I work on kind of like Tim actually. So I am also a nurse, I’m a nurse practitioner and when I go to work, I feel like the people that I help are truly helped. They are coming to me with a health problem that they they would like answers to resolving and I am able to help them resolve that problem.
Angel Mathis 45:36
And it usually doesn’t take me very much time. And so I can help a lot of people in a short amount of time. And that is something that I’ve done for so long that I can just do on autopilot now. And I have found that that is a little bit of a drain to me, as I feel like it’s important and it’s needed, but also it pulls my energy right out of me.
Angel Mathis 46:07
And so I also have started helping other nurses create a sustainable life through doing this thing that we just talked about, really setting up their own money methods so that they can create more boundaries around burnout work and pursue the life that they want, really.
Angel Mathis 46:36
And so that’s very, very valuable, not just to nurses, but to the people that they serve as well, their patients, because when they’re showing up to work, they’re also showing up in an extremely fulfilled and happy way.
Angel Mathis 46:52
And I feel that’s very, very valuable to the world.
Blake Boles 46:57
So you’re helping fellow nurses better think about money and manage money and therefore avoid burnout and therefore be better when they’re working. How do you do this? Is it an online course? Is it, tell me more.
Angel Mathis 47:13
Yeah, yeah, it’s an online course and people, nurses will come into it and I show them exactly how to set up this money method, how to plug in their own numbers. And within a couple months, they can see their own path to being work optional and that’s how it works.
Angel Mathis 47:35
And then they can make really clear plans for their future based on the output that they get.
Blake Boles 47:44
Awesome, we’ll put a link to that also. I want you to talk about your relationship to doing extreme stuff in the outdoors and nature and wilderness. Tim teed us up nicely here. Do you also feel this sense of coming home or of spirituality when you are out?
Blake Boles 48:08
Are you and Tim very similar in that way?
Angel Mathis 48:12
Yeah, I would say my relationship with the outdoors is it definitely brings a sense of centeredness, a sense of calm and peace. And it lets me be reminded that I am such a small little thing in this big universe.
Angel Mathis 48:34
And I think that that’s really important for keeping perspective with our jobs, with our work as nurses, that we can find what’s meaningful to us, but in the greater universe, we’re just so small and not to get overwhelmed and in our heads about about what we are accomplishing in life.
Angel Mathis 49:02
I think that to not be too dark about it, it’s a sense of futility and a sense of, you know, don’t take life too seriously. Just do your best and make sure that you have fun while you do it. And I feel like that’s what being outside gives to me.
Blake Boles 49:28
Mm-hmm. What about your own departure from religion? It sounds like you got started a bit early on the exit train. What was going on in your mind and your heart?
Angel Mathis 49:43
Well, look, I have a little bit different background from Tim. I was raised Catholic in a pretty strict Catholic family. My whole family generationally was Catholics, and so dating a Protestant guy was always a little bit of a rebellious act.
Angel Mathis 50:07
But I don’t…I will say…so because I did that, I had an early departure from Catholicism. And then through my Catholic faith, I was baptized and confirmed. This is my greatest brag here that’s coming up.
Angel Mathis 50:26
I was baptized and confirmed Catholic, and then I was baptized and confirmed Protestant. So I feel like I’ve got a lot of bases covered. And I don’t really mind…I don’t have a deep connection or deep meaning to…I don’t feel like a tie to leaving, because I feel like I’ve won the spiritual race.
Angel Mathis 50:51
And I hope whoever is listening to this isn’t defended.
Blake Boles 50:56
You’ve diversified your salvation portfolio.
Angel Mathis 51:01
I hope that that’s okay to say. Yeah, I think we can leave it there.
Blake Boles 51:09
All right. Can I dig anymore? If you want to leave it there, we can leave it there, but no, that’s good. I mean, I’m also curious if you needed to replace this religion in your life. And if so, what was it nature in the outdoors?
Blake Boles 51:28
Was it something else or was it not replaced and was there a hole or a chasm there? It sounds like for those of you who are raised in this pretty intense system, this belief system, to then exit that, I don’t have that experience myself personally.
Blake Boles 51:46
So I want to understand what it’s like for you.
Angel Mathis 51:50
Yeah, I don’t think I felt a whole I think that it was so painful to go through that inside of the church. And what I mean is, when Tim was in the ordination process, it was a very extremely stressful process.
Angel Mathis 52:07
And I wasn’t going through it directly, but I almost felt like I was because Tim was going through it and it was very stressful. And so when Tim decided to leave, there was a build up to it. And you could definitely feel that build up.
Angel Mathis 52:30
But then when he decided, he decided one day I came home from work, I think, or I don’t know, I came home from somewhere and he just said, I quit the church today. And I was stunned because I was like, it seems like such a big decision.
Angel Mathis 52:51
But that’s how it happened. But it didn’t come from nowhere. So when he said that, I felt two ways, stunned, but also enormously relieved that we could begin moving forward. So I don’t feel like I had a hole or a chasm.
Angel Mathis 53:11
I feel like I was able then to move forward with something that I really wanted to do that felt fulfilling, I guess. And so finding the outdoors felt really good because it was a ritual replacement, you know, in church, one of the reasons church is important is because of the rituals and the traditions.
Angel Mathis 53:40
And so being outside, it was kind of a replacement for that ritual that you would do. So Sundays became the ritual trail running day, and a different kind of group to mention a different kind of group of friends.
Angel Mathis 53:58
And so it didn’t feel like filling a hole, but maybe it was maybe that’s the same way of saying that, that it was just a more healthy, happy place to be that felt really nourishing and good.
Blake Boles 54:15
and you’ve led right into the next thing I wanted to discuss, which is friends and community. And I feel like there’s a lot of people who struggle to imagine their social life when they depart a conventional job.
Blake Boles 54:33
And it can be as simple as this. It’s like, I’ve liberated myself and now it’s 3 p.m. on a Tuesday and there’s no one to hang out with me. And so I’m curious, when you went through this transition starting around age 35 into working less into, yeah, just leaving the standard path you’d been on for so long, were you able to bring your friends with you?
Blake Boles 54:59
Did you lose friends? Did you have to rely on each other more? You’ve already mentioned that the outdoor community provided a number of new people, but also if you’re living in a city like Seattle and, you know, the outdoor community might still be mostly populated by people with normal jobs who are available in the evenings and the weekends.
Blake Boles 55:20
So yeah, how did your social needs evolve and were they fulfilled as you made the transition into dirtbag richness?
Angel Mathis 55:31
Yeah, that’s a fun question because one, we had such great friends that were so supportive to us and that we always looked forward to getting together with. And just because we had free time didn’t mean we wanted to hang out with people all of the time.
Angel Mathis 55:50
We were still working on our own things and we were actually traveling a lot. So that really took the pressure off. We weren’t in Seattle for pretty much five years. From 35 to 40, we were really all over the place, going to different places around the US and Canada.
Angel Mathis 56:11
And during that time, you create other relationships. And that was one of the most amazing things that I think came out of that time is when you have that openness and when you’re not time pressured, working creates such a time pressured environment where you’re like, I have to do this and this and this and this and my friends will fit in between that.
Angel Mathis 56:42
If you’re creating a space in your life where you’re not time pressured, you let life flow to you in a way. And so the people that came into our lives during those years of not working, we wouldn’t have expected.
Angel Mathis 57:00
We wouldn’t have crossed paths with them because it was in different countries, different places in the world. It was on the Pacific Crest Trail in the middle of the wilderness. And those are still some of our best friends now who we keep in touch with.
Angel Mathis 57:16
And they know us. They know the real us. Because one of the things that you realize is that people who know you in your work life know you kind of on a professional level. Not everyone, but even your friends know you somehow as a professional person.
Angel Mathis 57:40
Where when you meet someone on the trail, when you haven’t showered for a week, you smell like hell and you don’t care if you’re farting in front of them, they know you and they like you or they don’t.
Angel Mathis 57:59
And it’s real. It’s real. It’s raw. And those people are in my life and I wouldn’t have had them otherwise. And I love that. What were you gonna say?
Tim Mathis 58:15
I was just going to chime in really quickly on that note. I mean, we just got back from a month long trip in Wyoming and to Angel’s point. We spent a month with one of our friends that we met on the PCT and you know what, in this flow of normal life, who outside of your family would you spend an entire month with if you’re sort of in the normal flow of American life?
Tim Mathis 58:43
And I think that, yeah, it’s an interesting point that we, I personally think we definitely have, we definitely left behind a lot of friends that there’s a bit of grieving in that without a doubt for me.
Tim Mathis 58:57
But then you also do form these relationships that are tight and intense and aren’t, you couldn’t have had you just stayed on the normal path.
Blake Boles 59:10
I’m curious, leaving the realm of friendship, is there anything else that you feel like you have had to sacrifice to get to where you are today? Maybe another way to say that is, what if you had to say no to, to get here?
Blake Boles 59:27
And Angel, maybe this is as the numbers person, the background person, maybe this is more for you when you’ve had to make these decisions. Maybe it’s about spending, whether it’s about where you’re going to travel together or if you’re going to travel, how much you’re going to work.
Blake Boles 59:43
I’m sure everyone has to make a trade-off in order to live this kind of life. Like, what are the trade-offs that you’ve made?
Angel Mathis 59:50
That’s a really good question, and I guess you could call things trade-offs, but when you’re living from a place of, I get to have this instead, it’s hard to feel like you’re leaving, you’re losing something.
Angel Mathis 01:00:13
And so, sure, I maybe decided to take a trip to one place instead of another, but I still, you know, like, what would you say, sacrifice?
Tim Mathis 01:00:35
I mean, I think about like, I, yeah, I mean, there’s two sides of this. One is I actually think we did in our, in our twenties. We didn’t, we didn’t have the sort of youth youthful, like sort of frivolity that much.
Tim Mathis 01:00:51
We took a trip to Australia when we were 21 that kind of changed our life and, and a lot of different ways of planted all these seeds. And then we moved to New Zealand for a couple of years and studied when we were in our, our mid twenties as well.
Tim Mathis 01:01:06
But we always, we did, we paid some dues in the beginning, I think, to get ourselves out of debt and to establish a sense of, like we’re, like Angel mentioned, neither one of us are people with any expectation of any inheritance.
Tim Mathis 01:01:23
Neither one of us could really, if things collapsed, neither one of us could really go back and live with our parents. So we kind of had to establish a sense of, of independence. We’ve, we’ve been codependent and leaned on each other.
Tim Mathis 01:01:39
But outside of that, I think that we, we made a lot of decisions in our sort of early adulthood that eventually set up our, our path for where we are now. So I think we did sacrifice.
Blake Boles 01:01:53
I think.
Tim Mathis 01:01:54
20s to get to where we are in our 30s by working way more than I think we would have liked but but that’s I don’t know if that’s exactly the question at this stage it is like Angel said personally I have a really hard time feeling like I’m sacrificing because I feel like we’re doing and we return to this I think pretty consciously of asking like are we doing what we want to be doing and what we feel like we should be doing and then making adjustments if we’re not and so I don’t nowadays I feel like I’m pretty like I’m kind of cheating the the system yeah like we’re doing what we want
Angel Mathis 01:02:34
Yeah, I think it’s the mindset of I get to do this, like, this is what I want to do. Or if it’s not, let’s change something that needs to change. I don’t know, I don’t think that’s what you’re going for, Blake, but that’s, what do you think?
Blake Boles 01:02:51
I think you, uh, you’ve explained the trade-offs beautifully, uh, you could have had more like big time dirt bag adventures in your twenties and you, you had some, but you were, you were working and you were building up, uh, you were, you know, working away the debt, you were building up the foundation for the future and, and this is what I think is cool about people who really clear blueprint, there are some people who come to these realizations or come to like a certain level of financial stability just later on.
Blake Boles 01:03:31
Um, and there are others who figured out when they’re like 17 years old and, and then maybe they go hardcore into adventures or doing super entrepreneurial stuff, and then when they’re a bit older, they’re like, I think I want some like normal life experience and then they downshift into that.
Blake Boles 01:03:52
So, um, yeah, maybe sacrifice is too heavy of a word. It’s, it’s just what you choose to focus your energy on at a certain point in your life.
Angel Mathis 01:04:02
Can I add, now that I heard you talk that through, there are things that I was really scared I was sacrificing and it hasn’t come true. And so maybe that is part of the concern because for example, when I quit nursing, I quit my nurse practitioner career for five years and I believed I was sacrificing my career.
Angel Mathis 01:04:30
I believed not working as a nurse practitioner would make me lose my skills, would make me lose my ability to be employable, but that’s not what happened at all. And I know that now that I’m almost 45, I know that now and I know that there’s always a risk, there’s always a fear that you’re gonna lose something.
Angel Mathis 01:04:55
But I think also I know there’s something else amazing on the other side. And I guess we’re in a, maybe we’ve trained our minds really in a way that we’re able to see that other side a little bit more easily now when we weren’t in our 20s.
Blake Boles 01:05:15
Okay, this last question is for both of you. Do you feel like you are different from other dirtbag, outdoor-focused people because of your early religious faith? Like, you actually just made me think of this angel saying, like, you have this kind of optimism and that things are going to work out in the future.
Blake Boles 01:05:39
You know, there’s like the Christian virtue of hope. Just go for it. Tell me if you think there’s anything here or if it’s a nothing burger.
Angel Mathis 01:05:50
Nothing burger, I love that. I don’t feel I’m, I don’t, well, first of all, once you dig into people’s stories, you realize that everyone has their own story and everyone has arrived to their dirtbag rich or dirtbag lives on their own path some way.
Angel Mathis 01:06:12
I don’t think about my religious background or experience very often. I honestly, I, I, so I don’t think that that plays into or makes me feel different from others. But when I talk with people like you about it, I remember that that’s not an experience that a lot of people have gone through.
Angel Mathis 01:06:34
And it is something that’s kind of fun to think about and to reminisce on. What about you?
Tim Mathis 01:06:44
Yeah, I mean, kind of like Angel said, I think there are a lot of sort of extra-religious people out there in the world. That actually has been one of the things that’s come out of writing about both leaving religion and embracing the outdoors is like I’ve had a lot of people be like, yeah, I actually went through something very similar or I’m going through something similar right now.
Tim Mathis 01:07:08
But I think that the way that it shapes my approach to the outdoors as much as anything is I really do think a lot in terms of like what the purpose of all this is and what the sort of meaningful aspects of it are.
Tim Mathis 01:07:24
I did a degree in theology, like academic theology, when we were in New Zealand. So that’s, you know, it’s kind of my like, my brain was trained to think in these kind of like big picture, like, you know, what’s the meaning of all this kind of ways.
Tim Mathis 01:07:44
And so I definitely do think that that impacts the way it definitely impacts what I write about and the way I approach sort of what I think that I want to contribute to the world in that way. Because I think about, you know, a lot of the a lot of nature writing and stuff is you find those themes around the edges, but a lot of it will be just kind of describing these these kind of moments outside or,
Tim Mathis 01:08:10
or these adventures and the harrowing aspects and the, you know, the human condition and all those sorts of things. But, but I think I think a lot in terms of, of like, how does, you know, how do we produce meaning meaningful lives through the outdoors, I think is a big part of a big part of what I think about a lot.
Tim Mathis 01:08:28
And I do think that that’s probably because I come from a religious background.
Blake Boles 01:08:34
it seems pretty clear to me that there are a lot of people today using wilderness experiences, even if they’re not very deep into the wilderness, even if they’re not doing anything super hardcore as an effective substitute for what would have otherwise been a religious or spiritual community or practice just a hundred years ago when it was so much more commonplace and expected.
Blake Boles 01:09:02
Yeah, I don’t have any other insights to share with you on this. It’s a back-of-the-head, long-term developing thought and awareness. And you two just seem especially dialed into this, thanks to your long experience in the outdoors promoting this idea of being a dirtbag and your early religious backgrounds.
Blake Boles 01:09:26
Do you have any other profound wisdom to share on this topic before we wrap up?
Tim Mathis 01:09:32
I don’t have any profound wisdom, but it’s just made me think that, yeah, it gets back to this project on long trails and pilgrimage that I’m working on. I think that you’re right. We’re post something nowadays, even people who are religious are religious in a different way than they used to be.
Tim Mathis 01:09:51
So I think there is something to this without a doubt that the reason … I think that dirt baggery is properly a subculture. It’s a loosely associated subculture, but I think that it’s a group of people who are trying to find things from life that religion in the past has provided for a lot of people.
Tim Mathis 01:10:14
So yeah, I think there’s something to that that probably is worth, again, there’s more to explore here.
Blake Boles 01:10:21
Book number seven. That’s right.
Angel Mathis 01:10:24
Yeah.
Blake Boles 01:10:26
Tim and Angel Mathis, thanks so much for coming on Dirtbag Rich.
Tim Mathis 01:10:32
Yeah, thanks for having us, man. It’s been a good talk.
Angel Mathis 01:10:34
Yeah, thank you Blake and thank you for doing this work and helping more people realize that they can do what they want.