When my husband first came up with the idea of simplifying our life, I wasn't entirely on board. He talked about maintaining our current lifestyle, and putting any raises or extra money into our retirement, or giving it away. But something inside of me recoiled at that concept. I remember asking, "so does this mean that we are NEVER going to increase our personal funds?" And he asked, "what is it that you want that you don't have right now?" And I just sputtered and grumbled, and listed off a couple silly things. But the truth is, I didn't want anything specific, I just wanted MORE THINGS!!
Our culture teaches us that we deserve something. We deserve a certain lifestyle, a beautiful house, those perfect shoes, that brand new car; and it encourages us to work, work work, so that we can have the life that we deserve. And even though we hear about it all the time, contentment is not practiced too often. I had no idea how discontent I was with my life until I was faced with the possibility of it never changing. Because, you know, I had DREAMS! Like every other girl on the planet (or at least in the US) I had the picture perfect dream house in my head. More specifically, a white, two story farmhouse with a wrap-around porch, a swing, and sweet smelling roses winding their way up a trellis. And I pictured that moment when we could stop worrying about our budget, and just buy whatever I want whenever I want. A time when I could buy steak for dinner every night. A time when we lived in the lap of luxury, and had not a care in the world. And in one night, my husband shattered those dreams.
I didn't really like it at all, but I know that my husband is a wise man, and even though his ideas are controversial at times, they are usually pretty intelligent, so I decided to follow his train of thought, and give this new idea a chance.
We were looking at houses at the time, so when we decided to buy the smallish ranch, it was with the understanding that we wouldn't be upgrading in the future. And it wasn't white, and it didn't have ANY porch. When my husband mentioned that sitting in garage was just like having a porch, I cried, because I was giving up something that I thought I deserved. Something I had dreamed about as a little girl. But I had decided that I was going to practice being content with what I had. So I did. It wasn't easy at first. I felt like I had to confront every dream as they came up. But as time went on, I started looking at what we did have, instead of what we didn't. And we have a lot. SOO much more than we need or deserve.
When we are stuck on the future, and what we want to accomplish, and what we want our life to look like someday, you miss the beauty of the now. Somehow, we have swallowed the lie that 'things' can make us happy. I never would have pegged myself as that kind of person until I was forced to confront that ugly part of myself. Until a year ago, I feel like I was just waiting to arrive at that perfect moment, with my remodeled kitchen and meticulously organized playroom.
I was ignoring the now, the beautiful, perfect, now of this amazing life that I'm living.
