Life does not have to be complicated.
It can be lived in the simplest of ways.
We can choose to focus on the basics.
Good health, good relationships, and good community.
Yet as humans we tend to complicate things.
Having a comfortable life is not enough once we achieve it.
We have to have more.
More money, more resources, more prestige.
Having a good relationship is not enough for us after many years.
We look for a better partner, a younger partner, or a more well off partner.
Living with people we like can become not enough either.
We have to move to a better neighborhood, a better section of town, or a better city altogether.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a better life.
But do we recognize a truly better life is?
Do we understand that getting more is not always the answer we are seeking?
What good is being wealthy if we have to sacrifice our health to get it?
How does it serve us to end a long term relationship with someone if we do not change and grow before we enter another one?
We see someone else having a bigger house or newer car and we think that we will feel better if we have that too.
Perhaps we will, for a time.
Yet do we consider the implications of creating more of these things on the environment?
Do we ever consider the example we are setting by our actions for the younger generation?
To constantly pursue the thirst for more is unsustainable the way we currently operate.
We cannot keep cutting down the forests and polluting the oceans and still have a habitable planet for our grandchildren.
Instead of coming up with the next big App or climbing the corporate ladder to a position we hate, perhaps we could focus on ways to feed people who do not have enough food?
Or create new, more sustainable ways to travel?
The act of creation is something wonderful to engage in.
Doing it merely for the sake of accumulating money or becoming famous does not last and does not feed our soul.
There are big challenges facing humanity today.
Ones that require a change in how we live and how we show up in the world.
Perhaps if we start with the requirement that whatever we engage in has to be something our descendants would be proud of, we would change not onyl what we do but how we do it.
Making our health, our family, and our community priorities in our lives is something we are seeing more of today.
There is a trend starting that is moving us away from consumerism.
Perhaps that is the best place to start.
Instead of being a part of something that is all about creating something more for people to buy, we can choose to be a part of something that is about finding a better way to live.
A better way to be.
To be a part of trend that is about being better people, not richer people.
Wealth may come to us.
Living a life where that is not the motivation but a happy byproduct if far more fulfilling.
So how can you live a life that is simpler and yet something to proud of?
~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant
