What Can We Do Without? Simple living.

Having lived in Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa, for many years, and having worked in the air travel industry, camping was a part of life that we all enjoyed. Camping experience reminds us of the things that are temporal.

Few months back, I was pondering on this thought even as I saw my daughters' backpacks; from time to time they go for their youth camp trips. I  learned that for preparing to go on a camping trip, we usually make a list of what we must carry with us and quite rightly so; but when you flip the coin and see the other side of it, at times, a thought crosses my mind, its not "what I must take with me but what can I really do without?" matters. Have you ever made a list of what can we do without? it would be a great checklist. Authentically speaking, there is a lot of stuff that we can really do without.

So now if we focus on that thought and did the same thing with our daily living, and while making a list of what we must buy, what if we make a list of things that we really don't need and can do without? I guess in these days of hard economy that would be a great way to live life with contentment, look at life, and praise GOD in ALL circumstances..always rejoicing as Paul says.

So where is our identity? is it in the stuff that we own? or the cars we drive? the homes we live in, the latest electronic device that we possess? or the community we associate with? 

Someone has said, 'We buy things we don't need to with the money that we don't have, to impress the people we don't know." May I dare to add, "and we incur debts that we sometimes seldom recover from?" One kids' song from A Kiddie-Viddie video song series says, "Little is much if God is in it" and 1 Timothy 6:6 reminds us. "Godliness with contentment is a great gain."

I dare to add to this quote from a great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore that was reiterated in one of the Hindi movies, "Bawarchi: "It is so simple to be happy but it is so very difficult to be simple."

Would you give simple living a try?

Kalpana Christian Sharma (Mrs.)
Copyright © KC's Writings 2010