Nevermind, Forget it, It Doesn't Matter

Yesterday my wife said something to me, and when I didn't respond the way she wanted me to, she dismissed the topic by saying, "It doesn't matter." I'm not sure about your relationships, but when I hear this phrase it could mean a lot of things.

A. It could mean that it doesn't matter, because we have bigger fish to fry at the moment.
B. It could mean that it doesn't matter because she knows I wasn't listening the first time, and repeating herself isn't worth being understood on that topic.
C. It could mean something  I would want write a blog about. Here is that blog.

I am excited to say that I may have found the exact interpretation for phrases like these.

"Nevermind."

"It doesn't matter."

"Forget it."

"It's okay, don't worry about it."

"I don't care."

"Whatever."

"It's not a big deal."

"I'm over it."

"I'm sure it will work out okay."

I believe that these statements are usually a dismissal of something that a person really wants to say. They don't even come close to actually saying what the person means to say. They are completely inaccurate statement, but they slip into a lot of conversations anyway. As a matter of fact, I'm starting to ask the speaker immediately when I hear them because I truly want to understand what was intended.

You can see why this could be important in my marriage. Yesterday when my wife said, "It doesn't matter," that's not what she meant. I hesitated for a minute in the conversation with her. Then I asked, "Did you mean to say, 'I don't believe that you can understand how I feel right now?'" 

She thought about it. "Yes, that's what I meant." She said. It was a simple conversation, but I think it helped me to get some interpretation at the moment. I also think she was glad to be understood in that way.

I've also found a slight variation on the meaning, but it is similar. In other situations the speaker seems to be saying, "I don't even understand how I am feeling right now."

I am starting to keep an eye out for those little phrases, especially when I first say hello to people. "Hi, how are you doing?" I say, "Oh, good. We just have been (insert stressful situation), but it's no big deal. How are you guys?!"

With strangers or acquaintances I usually leave the statement alone, but with friends I'm starting to clarify what they mean. It seems to bring us closer together when I can understand what they are feeling, or they can understand it better.

Do with that what you will :)

Energy Efficiency Requires Community

As you know, I love simplicity, and for me that means seeking to own a minimal amount of possessions. As such, I am thinking a lot about the home that I own. It's a bit much, and the energy costs alone are a bit daunting. Beyond just downsizing, I often think about living off the grid completely, and finding alternative sources of energy.

A conversation with my youngest brother was most helpful on this topic, and gave me something new to consider. I was trying to get to the bottom of some specific metrics for energy efficiency, and I was asking him questions about it. He is in engineering school right now, surrounded by some of the most capable people for solving energy efficiency problems, and has been there for almost two years now. Here is what I asked him.

"Do you think it is possible to create a recommendation for the most efficient way to live off the grid, including specific energy source with exact model specs, ideal square footage of house, room sizes, ceiling height, insulation type, and even land size for food production?

His answer to me:

"Well possibly, but I think you may have a problem. Efficiency for energy cannot be achieved in isolation. Efficiency for producing energy is achieved much like other things in the economy, through specialization. If a person tries to be completely self-sufficient, he forfeits the value of specialization in the market, and forfeits efficiency in doing so."

Of course. It's not what I wanted to hear exactly, but then again I think it was exactly what I wanted to hear.

Part of me wants to be completely self sufficient, not depending on anyone. Another part of me desperately wants to depend on people, all the time. Off-the-grid is not the answer for energy efficiency. The grid is what makes it efficient!

It is important to acknowledge that not every grid is efficient just because it is a grid, and that many cities and towns are using 100 year old systems that are not efficient. I get that, but my point is that isolation can never truly be the most efficient way to live. We need community. We need to share.

Finding Strength in Nurturing

Right now there is a lot going on in our house. We are preparing for the new baby. This means several tasks are underway, like getting our toddler into her new room, organizing baby clothes, and organizing the house. On top of this the toddler is sick and growing some mean canine teeth that seem to be causing her some grief.

On top of that, my wife has a new challenge for her second pregnancy, gestational diabetes, so she has to have a really strict diet until the baby arrives while testing her blood sugar five times a day. If you know my wife, you know that she is a picky eater and hates having strict rules about her food. Having a giant baby inside her belly isn't making the days go any smoother either.

My biggest question is this. How to I stay strong emotionally for this house?

This idea has been a key to helping me grow. I had never thought about nurturing my wife until October of this year. The responsibility for that had never actually occurred to me. I also hadn't thought about what nurturing means to me.

When my life feels out of control, like right now, the thing I need the most is nurturing. The thing my wife needs often is nurturing. What does nurturing look like to you? Have you thought about it at all?

For me, it's easiest to understand when I think about a child in a tough circumstance. Maybe she is being bullied, maybe she is sick, maybe somebody yelled at a boy and upset him. That's when I see the need for nurturing. They need empathy, understanding, some logic and a friend. When I think about a situation like that, I instantly know how to nurture.

I've started to become aware of my own need for nurture too. I've started to be aware of times when I feel like a teenager who just got beat up at school. I've started to recognize when my friends are nurturing, and what that looks like. It's really helpful to me to understand that. Hopefully it's a helpful concept to you too.

Technology & Community

Is technology helpful to communities or harmful?

Technology advancement has had an impact on everything. The question is never whether technology has impacted something, but how. Communities are no different.

While many people look for impact of technology by focusing on the younger generation and the technology they use, I don't see this as the most important group of people or the most important technology. Instead of looking at cell phones and video games and teenagers, I prefer to look at the industrial revolution, and also the dramatic increase of intellectual jobs in the market. My reasoning is simple. Communities started breaking down before Nintendo, XBox, and iPhones ever existed. Put another way, I think the garage door opener had ten times more impact on the community than the Nintendo did.

Communities are people who know each other face to face, who trust one another, and rely on one another. Some define them as broader groups, but I'm specifically talking about smaller communities. These types of communities are rare in today's American culture, and I think the shift happened during the Baby Boomer generation, not during Generation X,Y, or millenials.

Technology like automobiles, tractors, combines, and airplanes seem to have impacted community much more dramatically than computers. Communities used to be self sufficient with crops, livestock, clothing tailors, and builders. Commuting to work was rare. The obvious example are the Amish and Mennonite communities who have resisted industrial technologies, but who clearly have tight knit communities.

Mennonite communities have a set of values that the industrial revolution took away from the rest of us. Sharing things, and depending on your neighbors is a good thing. Committing to a location is valuable.

While we may not be able to undo the industrial revolution, I do think we can try to undo the independent way of thinking it brought us to.

A World Without Community

Society at large has the power to encourage or discourage behavior. Laws are passed to protect individual rights, individual freedoms. On the other hand, a society at large has very loose moral rules. In the United States, the constitution does not address our morality, just our rights. It speaks to the value of human life, but not to the character of a man or woman.

A small community, on the other hand, is able to hand stories down from generation to generation. It is able to teach moral behaviors, and is concerned with character. It respects the individual rights outlined by the laws of the land, but also is able to uphold and encourage a moral code.

A community knows itself and knows its place in a way that is impossible for a public (a nation, say, or a state). A community does not come together by a covenant, by a conscientious granting of trust. It exists by proximity, by neighborhood; it knows face to face, and it trusts as it knows. It learns, in the course of time and experience, what and who can be trusted.

Wendell Berry uses "public" and community in opposition to each other often, but really they are not separate. The important thing I think is to realize the role that a community plays as a part of the larger public. It provides the moral code. It establishes how a person behaves, and how men and women relate to one another. 

Berry on Community

I am convinced that a lack of community causes many problems in our culture. My thoughts on this are evolving, but have been heavily influenced lately by Wendell Berry, an author from Kentucky who was recommended to me by a friend because of Berry's interest in the local community.

Berry takes my concerns about lack of community a step further than I have been able to take them, and he provides a framework of language that is quite helpful. I do not see Berry as infallible on the subject. Actually, I disagree with many of his perspectives emphatically. But he has propelled my thinking to a different level, and for that I am incredibly grateful.

I will post two or three blogs on his essay, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, soon. In the meantime, here is an excerpt from this essay that I love.

...community is a locally understood interdependence of local people, local culture, local economy, and local nature.(Community of course, is an idea that can extend itself beyond the local, but it only does so metaphorically. The idea of a national or global community is meaningless apart from the realization of local communities.)

A community identifies itself by an understood mutuality of interests. But it lives and acts by the common virtues of trust, goodwill, forbearance, self-restraint, compassion, and forgiveness. If it hopes to continue on as a community it will wish to--and will have to--encourage respect for all its members, human and natural. It will encourage respect for all stations and occupations. Such a community has the power--not invariably but as a rule--to enforce decency without litigation. It has the power, that is, to influence behavior. And it exercises this power not by coercion or violence, but by teaching the young and by preserving stories and songs that tell (among other things) what works and does not work in a given place." 

 More soon...

(Thanks to Elena for the recommendation on this essay by the way. I am grateful.)

Community: The problem of abstractness

Failing to understand the origin of the food that we eat is more than just a health hazard, it's an economic problem.

As the cost of food rises around the world, consumers are beginning to search for alternatives to the grocery store. The search through farmers markets leads us to an interesting discovery; the land that we live on cannot grow all of the food that we eat.

Believe it or not, the salmon from the grocery store do not swim in the lakes of Missouri, nor does sugar cane grow in Colorado, nor coffee anywhere in North America. In fact, the land directly surrounding most of our cities could not sustain the foods that the cities eat.

This situation not only creates an abstractness to the food that we eat, in that we know very little about our foods quality, but it also leaves us without an alternative source. If we knew 3 dairy farmers, we would have an alternative source to milk. As it stands, we only know the grocery stores, leaving us very few options if the price of milk were to change like the price of petroleum.

I have no reason to believe that this will cause any immediate problems, but the abstractness increases the risk. My thoughts on this are still developing. More to come.

Community Part 4

Action Items for a Better Community
I have a feeling that a lot of people would like to change their communities in some way. Maybe we want to develop new communities because we recently moved, or maybe our communities have changed on us because other people moved, or because we started dating, got married, had a child, got a sickness, a child left the house, or we really want to spend all our time with our new dog.  For whatever reason we feel like our communities need to change, and we don't know how to do that.

Since location is so critical for community, I wonder if  we can start with location first, and then work on the attachments after that.

For finding a location, here are some questions I've been asking.

• Does it attract interesting people because of its qualities? 
• Can you contribute something to the location to enhance it? 
• How close is it to your house?
• Do you know your neighbors? 
• Can you hang out with your neighbors at all? 
• Are there any community events for your town? 
• Is there a local breakfast place, coffee shop, or place where people gather that you can visit? 

Building attachments at your location.

• Have you tried to be vulnerable at all? 
• Do you have a chance to share something that you are passionate about? 
• Is it a place that your family fits in and feels a part of the community?
• Is there some kind of activity that will give the community a sense of achievement?
• Do you admire any of the people in your community?
• Have you ever told someone in the community that you like them as a person? 

I hope these blogs on community have been entertaining to think about! Wish us luck as we keep exploring the communities of Bardstown, Kentucky! 

Community Part 3

Here are a few scenarios related to location, and community. It has been valuable for me to think through these possible scenarios as I think about my current communities.

Friends without a location
A friend gets a job in another city, and now she lives far away from her community. Before she left, she had a different going away party for each location she frequented. The whole community is sad at each location, not because they are no longer friends, but because they feel like the have lost her from the community.

She can no longer share the location with them, so she is no longer a part of the community. She can still chat with her old friends online, travel back to see them inexpensively, even do a video conference with multiple friends at the same time, but she cannot truly be a part of the community any more.

I think this is a big challenge of globalization. Sometimes its hard to realize how important community attachments are, but even if we do realize how important they are, it can be hard to move in and out of communities so frequently.

A location without friends
When I was in middle school, my family had season tickets to the Air Force Academy football games for many years. By many standards this would be the perfect place for a community. I know that hundreds of college football stadiums around the country are great locations that house thousands of small communities. Strangely enough, for my family, it was not a community location at all.

I'm not identifying this as a negative scenario, I'm simply observing that this situation can exist. It is possitble to have a great location for a community, and to visit it frequently, but never have community there.

For us, we really weren't looking for community at the football stadium, just family time. We sat next to different people every week. We didn't tailgate with a regular group. We didn't meet up with anybody consistently before, after, or during the game. It was a great location, and great family bonding time, but was not a location for community for us.

Friends and a location without frequency
Since I've been married, we had a small community of friends in a different city. We used to visit our friends in Gunnison every year or so with a group of people. It was a fantastic group, and we all developed strong attachments with each other.

Again, this was a positive annual gathering, and I am glad we were able to do this while we could. Nothing negative about this. At the same time, it wasn't a community. The frequency simply wasn't enough, and the distance between us was too far. We are close friends, and always will be, but we are not a part of the same community.

More soon. Also, this was my 300th blog post. I'm proud. Cheers!

Community Part 2

A physical location is a prerequisite for community.

My closest communities throughout my life can all be traced back to a location. Growing up, my most common locations were sports fields or church buildings. In middle school my community revolved around the basketball court in our driveway. In high school the locations were a tennis court, basketball court, and church. In college it was a park where we played ultimate frisbee, and classes.

Knowing the location indicates a member's involvement in the community. For example, in middle school, knowing the hardness or softness of the basketball backboard was an indicator of commitment. Knowing the backboard meant that they knew me, and my friends too, and they were a part of the community. The same was true at church. People in the community knew where to park for which service, which door was likely to be unlocked, and the closest bathroom at any given time. If a person was unfamiliar with the location, it indicated that they were not a part of the community.

Today I have many friends worldwide, but all communities that I've been a part of shared a location. Friends may exist that are not a part of my community, and we may be very close. But unless we hang out at a consistent location, it's hardly a community.

Therefore, communities are not virtual, they are physical. I believe this is true for Facebook, fantasy football, fantasy online gaming, and many others. They can never be a community by themselves. Also inferred in this line of thinking is that even if a group of people likes each other, is committed to each other, and has things in common, they are not a real community without a common physical location.

Next, we are off to ideas of globalization, and the practical challenges of building community. More soon.

Community Part 1

I'm starting to believe that a location for a community is a prerequisite to having a community at all.

When we lived in Colorado, our community was all spread out. We lived 20 minutes away from where we went to church, and 30 minutes away from where I coached basketball, and our friends were usually at least 25 minutes away from us at any given time.

Many times while living in Colorado, I imagined a perfect world where all of our friends lived in the same neighborhood and worked in the same square mile. We all shared lawn mowers and  power tools, and we grilled and had drinks together every night of the week. I still fantasize about that sometimes.

Since we moved to Bardstown, we unfortunately have the same challenge we did in Colorado; our friends are scattered all over. Some are in Bardstown, some are 25 minutes away at the winery, some are over an hour away in Indiana. Being involved in a community is not so easy when the community lives and gathers all over the place.

I'm thinking a lot about this, and I've been writing a lot about it. I have 3 or 4 blogs to publish with all kinds theories, judgmental statements, and stereotypes just for you. Well, hopefully it won't be too bad, but I will try to keep it exciting!

3rd Floor, 5th Bathroom

At about 10:00 each morning, the demand for toilets on Fort Knox increases. This can be a problem as there are only 3 total toilets, in 2 mens bathrooms, on a floor of 300 I.T. employees (a career field that is predominantly male.)

The main problems with this situation is obvious; there should be more bathrooms and more toilets. There could be many reasons for this, but it seems easiest to summarize it this way, "It is a government building."

Another element of this toilet problem is the timing of the cleaning of the restrooms. I definitely am grateful to have a cleaning service and consider this a luxury, but I must say that they have odd times to vacuum and clean. Like, while we are working. It sure would be more convenient (for us and them) to let them clean in the evenings after people had gone home. We can probably chalk this issue up to a government process as well.

I have learned to deal with this situation. Usually I avoid the 10 o'clock hour, but I have mapped out 4 bathrooms (8 toilets) on 2 different floors as a contingency plan. Yesterday marked a new level of planning for me, and I felt like it was a big step that I wanted to share. I added a 3rd floor and a 5 bathroom...

 

That's right. Of my 4 restrooms, 2 were being used, one was being cleaned and the other was being used for urinalysis testing. Sigh. 

I refuse to add another bathroom to my plan now. I have reached my limit. Five is enough. If I cannot find a toilet by the 5th bathroom, I'll just stand by the stall and wait.

Simplifying My Taxes, A Letter to the IRS.

While I'm simplifying my life one segment at a time, I decided I would take on the greatest challenge of all, simplifying my taxes. Turns out there are laws about this... Which led me to writing this letter to the IRS.

Dear IRS,

I'm writing you to discuss the simplification of my personal taxes. See, I want to pay my taxes. I'm thrilled to give you my money in exchange for the right to work, live, and own property in the United States. I couldn't be happier about the arrangement we have going here. My challenge is this, I just can't figure out how much money to give you.

I know how much money I made last year exactly, and I know exactly how much was withheld from my paycheck and given to you. I just can't seem to figure out what that is worth to you. It appears that I will need to fill out the following forms to figure this out.

• 1040
• 740mp
• Colorado Partial Year
• 740 full year
• Schedule A
• 3903
• Schedule E
• 4562
• Schedule M
• Schedule D

Is this really necessary? I'm an honest guy, and have no desire to cheat you out of any money. How much do you need? Do you need to have about 10% of what I made? 15%? 20%?

If you really want me to fill out all of these forms I will, but hey it's me, Phil. We've done business together for years. You know me, I know you. Just tell me how much I owe you, and I'll give it to you.

It doesn't have to be a flat tax, but couldn't it at least be simple?

Your Favorite Tax Payer,

Phil

The Goal 2012 - Rebirth of a Ballpoint Pen

In 2005, I learned to eat M&M's slowly. In 2010 I finished an entire tube of chapstick one year. In 2012, I am attempting to accomplish something equally as challenging.

I, Phil Mondy, intend to use an entire ink pen until is completely void of ink and no longer writes. I intend to do this by the end of the calendar year 2012. Furthermore I intend REFILL that ink pen with a new cartridge of ink, giving that shell of a pen a second life!

It was early in 2011 when this idea first came to me. I received a set of pens from an online deal site by the name of woot.com. The box of pens came with all of the necessary components I would need for this accomplishment, refills for every pen in the box.

'Absurd!' I thought to myself, having rarely heard of a person owning a pen long enough to empty it's contents completely. Even in all of such cases I'd heard of, the pens were simply disposed of. On the other hand, what was I to do with refills that came with my pens? Kids are starving in Africa! I decided I would put the refills in the drawer in the laundry room for further consideration.

Time passed, and the thought occurred again. Could it be possible?  Probably not, but I started to believe the impossible could happen.

Now here I am, against all odds. I'm going to do it. I will refill a pen in 2012, and give it the gift of life again. There's no turning back now.

Simplifying The Basement Part 2

"There is some perfectly good junk here." I said. "We can't just throw away perfectly good junk, kids have AIDS in Africa."

So naturally, out of my concern for Africa, we thought of Goodwill. They have a drive through drop off. It's so easy.

It's easier than selling for sure, but still more complicated than throwing it all away. Complicated is bad. Complicated is very bad. Like the devil. No, the Anti-Christ. The Anti-Simple.

Simple is the goal, the greater good, the messiah which will rescue us into 2012.

But I was weak. I should have stared my conscience in the face and thrown it all away; forgetting Africa and Goodwill, but I chose the option which made things more... I can barely even say it I'm so ashamed... complicated.

We made two piles. One of trash, and one of donations. It was a setback, but we did it. Then, we pressed on.

After many, many  mind-numbingly, word-jumblingly, proof-readingly difficult hours in the basement, we simplified the basement. Nine plastic tubs, a shelving unit, two fridges, a treadmill, and two people survived to tell the tale.

It felt good. We were still bested by consumerism at times, but I believe that we won the battle. We faced the fear. We stared consumerism and the face and said, "Simplicity is better than having more stuff, you ridiculous, consumerist dragon!"

One small step for simplicity, one giant leap for quality of life.

Simplifying The Basement Part 1

Nobody likes to think about organizing basements or garages or attics. They are a mind trap waiting to suck the energy out of us. Cleaning the basement is worse than standing in line, worse than getting a speeding ticket, possibly even worse than an office Christmas party. It's like voluntarily being banished to the dungeon. The dungeon is lit by a couple of small windows, and has a supernatural power to inflict guilt until it is clean and organized.

Did I mention the dragon?  The one that slings cardboard boxes filled with useless things constantly? Difficult to believe unless you see it with your own eyes, but that's what we had to face when we descended into our basement last week.

How hard was it, you ask? How hard was it to go into the basement and answer this simple question,  "Do you want to keep this?" I don't want to exaggerate here. It was mind-numbingly difficult, word-jumblingly difficult, proof-readingly difficult. It was hard. 

It was hard to answer a simple question 1,000 times in a row, no matter how simple the question was. It was even harder to answer the follow up questions.

Let's say the answer was yes. "Where should we put it?" Was the follow up question.

Well if we knew where to put it, it wouldn't be in the basement. So we had to ask, "How long has it been since we used it?"

Again, it's probably been a long time cause it's in the basement. So we ask the original question again with emphasis. "Do you really want to keep this?" And the cycle continues.

If the answer was no, we don't want to keep said thing, the follow up question was, "Can we sell it?" This was a huge rabbit trail. Selling things takes effort and it has nothing to do with cleaning, organizing, and simplifying which is what we were trying to do. We gave up finally and made a blanket rule. No selling anything.

That felt good. We made a rash blanket rule to help us with our simplifying. That's what I needed. A big fat dramatic rule to keep us on task.

And that's when my conscience kicked in.

(More tomorrow)

Simplifying My Schedule

City Girl is talking to Country Girl, "When would be a good time for me to stop by to pick that up tomorrow?" Says City Girl, trying to get a feel for the Country Girl's schedule.

"Well anytime that's good for you. We'll be here." Says Country Girl.

City Girl stops for a minute. She feels the urge to tell her exactly what time she'll arrive, but she doesn't have to. She hesitates. She is realizing that she doesn't even have to call her before she comes over. She can just show up whenever she wants. Then she starts to wonder if she'll have time tomorrow to pick it up. Maybe she should pick it up two days later. Finally she says, "Well if I don't get it tomorrow, I'll be there the next day."

Country Girl laughs, but her answer is the same. "Ok, we'll be here."

A few months ago I was driving down the road in a hurry. Without noticing, I began tailgating the truck in front of me. It was an old farmer, casually cruising along. He pulled over to the shoulder and I thought maybe he was going to check under the truck's hood for something wrong, but as soon as I passed he pulled back up on the road.

The farmer didn't have a care in the world. He wasn't even flustered by my apparent rush. In fact, he seemed genuinely concerned about me. Maybe something bad had happened and I was on my way to the hospital or something. His actions seemed to communicate "Oh, you must be in a hurry, I hope everything is ok. Why don't you go in front of me?"

These situations are the result of a simple schedule and a complex schedule colliding. I prefer the simple schedule. It says something about quality of life I think. Maybe having a simple schedule is more valuable than winning an award for my efforts. Maybe it is more important than money.

Simplifying My Closet

I get excited when my closet looks like it has extra room on the hangers. I'm excited because it looks like I'm making progress. I am simplifying my life, and getting rid of waste.

One way I'm doing this is, giving away "backup" of something. Having a backup of something is my excuse to buy things I don't need yet. So nowadays, if I wait until I'm actually giving the old shirt away before buying a new one, that is a success.

Another way I'm simplifying my closet is by making things last longer. I bought insoles for several of my shoes recently. The cheapest insoles work just as good as the expensive ones, so $3 can make a pair of shoes comfortable for 6-12 months.

Another thing we've done is that we don't have a dresser in our room. So, no extra chest of drawers to fill space and collect clothes. What I'm finding is that if run out of space for our clothes, we can just get rid of clothes instead of making more space.

Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions to the rules. I'm attempting to move in the right direction, but I'm not going to the extreme. For example, I believe in dressing nicely at work. My perception at work directly impacts my income. So I replace shoes every 2-3 years and pants and shirts every 3-5 years. I'm not going to try to stretch the life on these clothes.

Also, sometimes a backup still makes sense. I churn through jeans and tennis shoes fast enough to have one backup. But I still feel good because I limit it to one backup.

How cool is it to celebrate having LESS in a culture that always desires more money?

I Like Warren Buffet

Warren Buffet raised his kids as if they weren't wealthy. In the same way most kids don't know what exactly their parents do, his kids didn't either.  It wasn't until their mid twenties that they really even knew the full reality of their father's wealth. He was the richest man in the world.

When they were kids, they thought he was a security guard because he worked in securities. When they turned 19 they were given $90,000 to get started in life, and that is all of the inheritance they would receive.

I just like that. Living below our means creates a lot of freedom. It allows us to focus on important things, and prioritize needs over wants.

What if we did the same thing? What if we set a budget that was well below our income? What if we planned to live that way for our entire lives?

Check this out. Warren Buffet still lives in the same house he raised his kids in which cost him $31,500 in 1957. What if we perminently stopped house shopping? How would that change us?

I believe this way of thinking could nearly eliminate the covetousness. It would put a kibosh on wanting something bigger and better all of the time. It would foster contentment.

Side note: I still haven't bought back into the stock market much. I'm waiting for it to drop to 10,000 on the Dow. Patience is my game still. Warren Buffet says he's back in the market (Berkshire Hathoway is buying), and that he doesn't think recession is coming. Can't argue with him really, it's going to be time to buy back soon.

Advocate For Simplicity

I am attempting to change my personal value system in a way that opposes consumerism (trendy right now, I know). In short, I am beginning to value simplicity for simplicity's sake.

Practically speaking, this means I may do some unusual things. If I have an extra item, I may just give it away. Even if the one I have might wear out in six months. I'd rather just own what I need. If I win the lottery, I might just put the money in a foundation to be given to the poor. Maybe I'll pay off debts first, but maybe not. Maybe I'll just be content with what I have.

Obviously this is easier said than done, but I think this describes the value shift that is occurring inside me right now. There is something really valuable about simplicity. It is difficult to fathom, but perhaps simplicity could be more valuable than money.

I'm not talking about time. The trade off between money and time has always been at the forefront of my consciousness, partially because of some books I read when in high school. Creating wealth gives a person freedom with time. True. The value I'm developing for simplicity draws on this concept, but is a much different value that just time.

I'm not talking about fulfillment at work. People should be able to work in an industry that they are passionate about working in. Again, I see this value as related, but simplicity is a value all by itself and is separate from fulfillment at work.

Richard Foster convinced me. He wrote this book about simplicity 20 years ago that still is very relevant today called Freedom of Simplicity. I don't buy into everything of course, but the main theme is really good. The first half of the book is very academic and boring to me, but the second half made me really think about this stuff.

I'd like to be an advocate for simplicity as well. I'd like to talk about it more because I think it really could make life more fun and fulfilling.