I’m a lucky guy! So are you if you’re reading this!
Economic recession? Wallet’s tight? Putting in those extra hours for that extra “bling”? Higher interest rates? Boss putting an insane amount of pressure on your head? Feel like you have nothing left? You’re done?
Well if you’re reading this, then none of the above are actually an existential crisis for you. You reading this means – you have a computer/ laptop/ phone, a working Internet connection, electricity, you’ve had a meal already and positively a roof over your head. Also like me you have a lovely family, some great buddies and people who support you.
For numerous folk these are fairy tale scene. Getting a glass of fresh water to drink is a blessing for people in drought stricken regions, a morsel of clean food, a gift for a populace in the famine ravaged regions of the world. For others in war ravaged regions, home is but two stilts acting as a support for a sheet of plastic. This just puts our position in a diametrically opposite perspective where our lives are secure, warm and all fuzzy. Now, it would only seem apt to be overly satisfied with what we have and how much we have. Privilege is what we have in the face of the adversity the world is facing everyday.
In the ever growing age of desire, marketing, advertising and peer pressure, we give in to it! Everyone is after the next “IT” thing! And this we reflect sometimes on our children.
There are a couple of things I’m currently working on, one of them would be to simplify life; take out all the unnecessary, don’t let in this stuff in my life again. Appreciate all that I have material and otherwise, with latter being the more important of the two! A deeply caring and loving family I can always fall back on.
Another, to pass this on to my daughter.I’m having a growing daughter at home, making things difficult by wasting water, food etc. These are the moments forbearing on a parent. It sometimes cannot be ignored simply because the child starts throwing tantrums; it is then with utmost restraint we need to teach them, explain it to them how fortunate enough we are to have things which a vast section of mankind doesn’t know if such a thing were to exist.
There are simple things I try to appreciate; a sunrise, the early morning sounds of birds, my daughter’s calling. Simplify.
Newton said “Nature is pleased with simplicity.” But then Da Vinci comes a close second to mind, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
