simplicity & finances

It’s often hard to unplug the competitive nature of keeping up with the Jones’s.  Certainly my house doesn’t look the same as it did 15 years ago, because I’ve ‘improved’ it in part to make the interior space work for my burgeoning family, and in part to tie all the parts of the house together in a uniform colour scheme with at least some matching furniture…   But do I really need my sofa’s to match?

I am often struck by the want to acquire.  I work with technology, and that often drives me to inquire about latest gadgets. I like them but the reality is I don’t need any of them.  So I have held off getting an ipad. (though I do have a much cheaper epad – but I barely use it because I mainly use my phone (when I’m out of the office) and my laptop when I’m in the office).  I do like reading on the e-pad though..

But I don’t have a massive TV, it can’t support 3D or HD.  I just have a computer monitor connected to Virgin Media via a media box. it works fine.

I drive old cars because frankly, I prefer having to ‘drive’ rather than point and steer and there’s something truly satisfying about conversations with (mainly older) people that strike up because they once had one or haven’t seen one of those for ages… such contact points in my travels are really welcome respite from mundane isolation.

But I am a long way from being anywhere near where I think I should be in respect of recycling, simplicity, generosity and sustainability.  It’s very tough to make the decisions that will substantially change the way you live in the ‘modern’ world.  It’s even more difficult when you can so easily observe that very few others give such considerations any space in their technology obsessed lives.   Now don’t get me wrong, technology is all around us and we couldn’t actually run life today without electricity, transport, washing machines etc..  and it’s not technology that is bad, but our relationship with it is really worthy of examination.

Anyone can make any excuse for possessing anything.  This is an absolute fact.  Whatever you want to have, you can justify purchasing if only to yourself. Let others judge you (they will) on your purchasing decisions. They will also determine how much money you have (or have borrowed) and they will also make a judgement about what sort of person you are because of what you have spent your funds on.  20 years or so ago I remember judging one fellow I was acquainted with because he chose only to have one pair of shoes.  He would wear the same pair of shoes no matter what outfit (he only a two or three of these anyway) and frankly I thought he looked scruffy and was ill advised.  yet was he living more simply than I?  In Jeff Goldblum’s version of the fly, his clothes cupboard was complete with several outfits of identical nature. Is that really more simple? Both can be easily justified. Which one is right?

Reading the god first blog today, there are some refreshing principles from Celebration of Discipline that may help us to remedy this conundrum.  Let me suggest you hop over there and read the 9 bullet items and see what you think… http://www.godfirstblog.com/2011/06/the-discipline-of-simplicity-richard-foster/

I’d be interested to know your thoughts on the matter..