Can you remember the time when the majority of the world was in lockdown? Families connected. We were amazed at the stories of how nature took back what society had taken from her. It was like the whole earth took a few deep breaths, ironically, in a time when some were desperate for oxygen. That world now seems like a pipedream, a few years along the line. It’s crazy how quickly we forget the lessons that history teaches us.
If I hear people correctly, it seems that many people don’t prefer the lives that they are currently living. People want a more simplistic life, a life where we can breathe, a life with less pressure, a life where we have the time to look people in the eye. But what we often settle for, is an unsustainable life, with the odd vacation every few months. That’s like running never-ending 100-meter sprints with short rests in between, for the rest of your life. Our bodies weren’t made for that!
Maybe, the most meaningful question to ask when we consider our hurried lives aren’t “How do we stop?” or “How can I change?” but “What does my life say about who I am?”.
In the UK, each child has an average of 238 toys, while they only play with 12 of them daily.[1] We buy things we do not really need or necessarily even want, with money we do not have, to impress people we do not have an authentic relationship with!
There was a time when my wife and I loved to binge-watch Storage Wars; a show where storage facilities auctioned off stuff that people never came back to pick up, or where people stopped paying for the storage. The whole punchline of the show was that there were some gems in storage, but the people who bid for the stuff, didn’t know exactly what they were bidding for… it was always a bit of a gamble; high risk, high reward, or the bidders lost a lot of money in the process!
But think about it with me for a second: how many of the things in storage in and around our towns are stuff that people do not have space for anymore? In other words, people have to pay monthly rent so that they can store some of the things that they do not need or have use for!
On so many levels, a simple life is a better life. But the biggest mistake we can make is to choose an alternative lifestyle without considering our identity and what moves us. To trade-in a cluttered life where consuming is the norm for a life of less, will not necessarily change what is most important. We need a change of heart, and I believe the only One that can help us with that process has a name. He doesn’t only want to tweak our lifestyles, but also wants to offer us a brand new life; a simpler, abundant life. More on that soon.
Some of the most important things in life are never urgent. Nobody is going to tap you on the shoulder to remind you of the looming deadline or threaten you that you won’t make the team or receive your salary if you forsake what is most important. The things that don’t seem urgent but are vital for us, need to be pursued with an inner urgency, knowing that if we forget about these things, we will ultimately pay the price. And, sadly, the ones we love most will settle for a life with us that we were never meant to have lived.
For the next few blog posts, this is what we will be reflecting on. What do our lives say about who we are? Is there hope for a simple, meaningful, and abundant life?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jan/03/empty-promises-marie-kondo-craze-for-minimalism
Anru Liebenberg 
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