Dynamic Yet Consistent

Family at Jackson's Orchard

I was talking with someone the other day about my ability to work at Kaleidoscope without compensation.  She was very confused… how could Beth and I support ourselves if I was only working minimal hours a week at a low rate and us practically living on a teacher’s salary.  It was easy I told her… we live simply.  We drive old cars, don’t buy new clothes, have a modest house and save our money.  Unfortunately these simple exercises are entirely foreign to too many people.

In the last year our take home income has decreased by over 30% and we have a new member in the family.  At the same time, our savings have gone up and “happiness” has significantly increased.  In the last year, my primary job has gone from full time to part time to very part time to no time.  Instead of stressing about money, we have actually been able to give more and save more.  In fact, since Mikayla has been born, our monthly expenses have continued to drop.

What accounts for this?  Have we fired our butler?  Have we sold off hidden assets?  Have we joined a commune?

Not at all… we have just continued to re-evaluate our priorities and moved towards a simplified life.  Time with family is more important than extravagant vacations.  Food from the garden is better than eating out.  New clothes are not needed when you aren’t trying to impress people who do not even care about you in the first place.

Sure we don’t drive the nicest cars (when they run), and Lord knows we don’t have the slickest attire.  We aren’t on everyone’s “Who’s Who” list and we don’t get to experience the newest greatest things, BUT…

We are as happy as we have ever been, we stress less, and the time we spend with family and friends outweighs any possession or experience one could buy.  I regularly wake up excited about what the day holds and not worried about what I have to get done.  Those things are priceless.

There is no way I could go back to the rat-race of life.  In only people knew the peace and happiness that comes from a path of downward mobility….  There is a reason that Jesus told his followers to sell all they have to give to poor.  It is not so that the poor can be liberated, but so that the wealthy can.

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau is a personal hero of mine because he authentically lived his life and was willing to call into question the status quo.    His writing span a wide swath of topics from nature to civil disobedience to truth.  He is considered a transcendentalist and was significant in influencing people like Ghandi, JFK, MLK, Tolstoy, Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Thoreau:

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

A man is rich in proportion tothe number of things which he can afford to let alone.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Being is the great explainer.

Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation

Walden Pond