Small is Beautiful

Seems like this Katrina disaster has gotten people all over the country to start thinking about getting back to the basics of life . . .like LIVING and not mindlessly consuming.

Until this summer, the Husband and I hadn't owned a car for almost ten years. We lived in the big city and walked everywhere. If we absolutely needed a car, we rented one.

But this summer we bought a car. And really, I don't like it. I have to wash it. Vacumn it. Take it in to be serviced. The dog chewed off the tire valves. My life was much simpler without the car.

It was the Husband's birthday yesterday and we went out to dinner with another couple at my favorite restaurant in the world. A traditional, family-owned restaurant, housed in an old-fashioned hotel. It's so cool, that when the Germans took over the town, the SS chose this hotel as their headquarters.

The Husband was asked how his 92-year-old father was recovering from his stroke. The Husband replied that he was concerned that the end may be near for his father because his father was acting like his mother did just before she died . . .full of new-found energy and very eager to give things away.

That got me to thinking about an eight-year-old girl from my hometown back in Montana that was dying of cancer. A month before she died, she started giving away her coveted Beanie Baby collection.

What these behaviors say to me is that when the end is appoaching, there is an overwhelming, innate desire to strip oneself of the materialism of this world, and take on the mantle of the true spiritual self.

Throughout life, we are taught to sell our souls to the company store in order to have the RIGHT to acquire, acquire, acquire. We forego living the life we really want, because we feel we must be part of the rat race.

But we all end up at the same place . . . the graveyard, without any possessions.

So why do we postpone LIVING until it's too late, wasting our precious limited days with the getting and the maintaining of our possessions?

We do this because our egos have been manipulated by advertisers, by a society built on zealous consumption, to believe that we are worthless without possessions. And brainwashed with this insecurity, we throw away what is truly precious, our ability to think for ourselves, our ability to love unconditionally, our ability to create.