Monday, January 30, 2006

On darning a sock...

Darning a sock... who does that anymore? Who would even consider it? Women used to learn how to do that all the time, repair holes in your socks. Nowadays we all just make a cliche joke about having "holy socks" and throw them away the next time we remember. Where did you start thinking about this Laura - you may ask? Well.... I went on a retreat with Woodland this weekend - a Winter Woodland Retreat to Cathedral Domain - a retreat center about an hour outside of Lexington - and we focused on SIMPLFYING our lives. We watched a video that followed the progression of society in its need for new and the novelty rather than appreciating the antique or fixing what needs repaired. Ok - so it was a little more complex than that, but here's the way I understand it. As a society we no longer place value on the antiquated. Everyone wants and needs something new, something never been used, and when something breaks, instead of having it fixed or figuring out a way to adapt, we instead just buy more crap. Then you end up with 4 cell phones in your closet that don't work, more clutter in your life, and more stuff to worry about. Now this is just ONE example of the need to simplify our lives. Yes, getting rid of the physical clutter in our lives will help with simplifying our lives, but it's more than that. It's realizing how much you really need to be working in order to really be happy. Do you really need to have the most up to date everything in your house, fashion wise, car wise, even food wise? Do we all need to constantly be busy, constantly having a project or something to occupy our time? So often that translates into working long hours and never being able to appreciate the large house and family that you have, because you are trying to maintain a level of income that can support that lifestyle. So the answer is not JUST that we need less stuff...it's that in order to live off of a more limited income, we probably need to make decisions about what "stuff" in our lives can go.... if we no longer have a need for this huge income, whether it's because we take less expensive trips, buy less expensive or fewer clothes, or because we take the ultimate cable channels out of our homes, when we don't need this large income anymore, then we can work less and spend more time doing the things that really matter to us! So I may not take to darning socks anytime soon - but I'll be looking at my lifestyle and trying to see what I can take out of it, try to scrape out the clutter - and make my life more meaningful in the end.

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