by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

It sounds like even Pablo Picasso knew the secret to a happy life when he said,

“I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.”

As I and many people around me begin and continue to “downsize” their lives and their habits of consumption, we are rediscovering ourselves and filling up with more meaning than we ever expected. Sometimes it happens purposefully, like with my friend who couldn’t stop thinking about horses, so he left his city job to reside as a horse caretaker on a ranch in Montana, where he has found passion and purpose. Other times people start by making “sacrifices” (driving less, walking more, buying less, paying more for local food, giving up meat, etc.) and are then caught by surprise by the personal results. They feel more peaceful, more creative, more intentional, more healthy and just more “happy”.

As Picasso points out, we all also want to feel a sense of security, and although he mentioned money, I think he possibly meant the broader term, “rich”  - in our case, riches of the soul that can be provided by a more simple life, connected to people and nature. Of course, we don’t want to be “poor” in a way that denies our wholeness, but it’s another wake-up call to understand that as we grow wealthy, we are not necessarily growing rich.

Little do we know, the more we move our lives back to simplicity, meaning and connection to each other, the more secure we can feel about the future  - both in terms of our survival, our comfort and our happiness.

Tags: Voluntary Simplicity

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Philosophy, Voluntary Simplicity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.