Category: Opinion

The accumulation of material things sucks! I know that many if not most won’t agree with that opinion, but there it is. Maybe that’s why the monastic life has always appealed to me. Having nothing carries a sort of peace that most people don’t seem to recognize. There’s a sort of prevailing societal beliefs that life has to involve the accumulation of personal wealth and the accumulation of crap within one’s environment. This is a perspective that developed over a longer period than I care to think about.

The reality is that people have forgotten that money is not the goal in life. We get jobs and earn money so that we can get by in life, obtain lodging, clothe and feed ourselves and maintain the basic amenities we need to stay alive. If you’re working with the goal of becoming rich, you should be looking inward and asking what that wealth is expected to provide. People often say that money can’t buy happiness and I’ve often said that I’d prefer to find out for myself. But the monument I make the earning and accumulation of money my goal in life, I’m confident in the thought that the aforementioned happiness won’t come.

That being said, money isn’t the only issue but what people do with it. Having the biggest house or the newest car, owning a cabin at the lake or having a huge flat screen television… People associate property with success instead of considering success to be a sign of success. In its own little way, it’s kind of sad. As long as I have my clothes. My books and some ability to write and workout, I’m happier than a proverbial swine in its own expelled fecal matter.

There’s also a significant weight that one carries when possessing all of these things. When you consider aspects such as how much harder it is to gather and move all of those belongings if you change residence, or the significantly increased loss one suffers if those belongings go up in flames or get stolen, owning less stuff or being something of a minimalist doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. Plus, one must consider that any added monies you may gain by not purchasing all the crap can be used to have experiences, instead.

Lastly, I’ve observed that people will try to conform with this societal expectation of ownership and wealth by living beyond their means. This means using credit or leaning on future monies they don’t have in order to get that bigger house or buy the big camper trailer. Although credit and the ability to use it is an important part of Canada’s economy, the accumulation of debt can happen quickly and without warning, with most people unfortunately unaware that those monthly payments they’re positive they can make can trip up one’s finances faster than one thinks. This can lead to a poorer quality of life and loss of home and livelihood. Certainly not worth owning that motorcycle, even if you’ve dreamed of it for years.

The lesson here is to live within your means. If you want your means to increase, that can be something to work on. But living beyond one’s means will not only prevent the betterment and advancement of one’s life but will also hinder it in ways that can be difficult to get out from. Having less stuff won’t make you unhappy. If nothing else, it will offer up a freedom that you may not have allowed yourself to consider. Food for thought… ☯️

Once in a while I get wistful for the beauty and landscape of the Northern shores of New Brunswick. I’ve always fancied it as something of a shame that one never truly comes to appreciate the beauty and splendid of one’s own home until they’ve been gone from there for a period of time. For myself, I left New Brunswick in my late 20’s with my intent being to build a future elsewhere. When I consider New Brunswick, I recognize that there is very little prosperous economy there and the medical system is quickly becoming one of the worst in the country.

But that doesn’t take away from the fact that, every time I go home, I’m taken by the open water, rolling Appalachian mountains and temperate climate. It’s something I don’t seem to remember noticing when I lived there. And that’s where the shame comes in. I’ve had plenty of opportunity to recognize that I should repeat the mistakes of others. After all, four out of seven of my mother’s siblings have spent their lives away from the Maritimes, only to return upon retirement because they could no longer stand to be away. I should have spotted and learned from that. But I didn’t.

Every time I travel back home, it takes my breath away. This always seems to be counter balanced with the fact that I’ve been spoiled by living in larger centres. Living in an area where I have almost immediate access to anything that I immediately require or want, at the drop of a hat. When I travelled to New Brunswick with my family last September, I quickly discovered this wasn’t the case there. In fact, we had evenings where we had difficulty arranging for dinner for all of us. It cast a bit of a shadow on an otherwise pleasant trip. That and, you know, NO one acknowledging we came home and no one coming out to visit. But that’s a different story.

My point is, when i lived there, I never noticed such shortcomings. I was happy with where I lived and where I was. Since life only moves forward, it makes sense that I would have sought out a career and life path that would give me the best possible opportunities. But doing so has skewed my perspective on what’s important in making a home. And that’s something I need to recognize and adjust within myself. It may be an important lesson to consider that it’s important to appreciate what we have and where we are in life. Doing so may lead to better happiness. Food for thought… ☯️

The World Wide Web is an amazing thing, allowing the general population to have immediate and almost uncensored access to the world’s information. It’s a truly wondrous thing and I have to admit, it would have made high school projects a lot easier for me, had I access to it in the early 1990’s. But as with all things in life, a balance is required and there are negative aspects to having this immediate access at all times.

One of the bigger problems is that we’re constantly exposed to the world’s negativity. When I was younger, we only heard about pertinent crimes and issues that took place in our little corner of the Province. Anything beyond that didn’t matter because it didn’t relate to us. Although this might seem like a bit of a “head in the sand,” it certainly allowed for a more peaceful life. Anything of pertinence or from outside our little circle would be broadcast on the news or the radio, so we were never truly left in the dark.

The online world has become the primary means of communication in the world, alerting everyone to everything at all times. People are often shocked and awed at the things happening in the world, ignorantly unaware that these things have been happening all along; we simply weren’t aware of it. But the big change has been social media. Good ol’ social media… The unwanted step-child of the internet. I have a distinct love/hate relationship with social media, having stepped away and cancelled my accounts on more than one occasion. If it weren’t for the sheer convenience of communicating with friends and family, I likely STILL wouldn’t have any social media accounts.

Friends and family, as it relates to social media, is actually the point of today’s post. Social media unfortunately allows most people to become armchair warriors, arguing on matters that they would otherwise have no knowledge about. Or basically just complaining. And that’s where things get difficult, for me. I don’t have many genuine friendships and the associations I maintain online are often more for nostalgic purposes than anything else. The friendships I maintain involve a more traditional “in person” component. Call me old fashioned.

This is why, when someone becomes an aforementioned armchair warrior, especially on a topic that shouldn’t elicit such a response, it becomes difficult for me to maintain that association. A big part of my beliefs is the elimination of suffering from my own life as well as the life of others. No easy task, to be sure but it’s made all the more difficult by the fact that I sometimes see people I know and respect letting the cheese slide off their crackers for trivial matters that should simply have them scroll on by as opposed to commenting.

The irony is that one might take the view that by writing this post, I’m doing the very thing that I’m writing against. I guess the difference, in my view, is that this is a phenomenon that DOES directly affect me, my relationships and how I view and associate with said people who follow this practice. Unlike others, however, I won’t engage in the matters that I don’t agree with, I’ll simply scroll on by. Or in extreme cases, I’ll unfollow/block the offending party. I hate to admit that I’ve taken this step on occasion, even with family members.

I had a cousin, with whom I had minimal contact for decades. About ten years ago, we made contact and began communicating again when his mother, my aunt, passed away from cancer. An extremely intelligent and well-educated man, we had some reasonable conversations and I was happy with the concept of having a close family contact only a few hours away in Western Canada. And then, something funny happened. He got a speeding ticket and began publicly bashing law enforcement for giving him said speeding ticket.

Now, I’m pretty thick-skinned and this kind of thing has been happening throughout my entire career. I’ve sat in my mother’s kitchen while some of my uncles have literally bad-mouthed police and government for how they deal with things but that was usually i the spirit of discussion. In my cousin’s case, he was just angry about getting a ticket and it was everyone else’s fault. Had it been just a one-time thing, I likely would have left it alone, having scrolled on by. But when he got a total of three tickets within a two-month period and failed to see that perhaps his driving was the issue at hand, I had had enough.

All in all, the internet is a great resource for people and has joined the world in many amazing ways. Lost friends and family and now easily connect and communicate, people can learn and gain knowledge in ways they never have before and the world’s news is at one’s immediate fingertips. There is a lot of positive that can come from these things but as with all things in life, there is some negative as well. Instead of complaining about things online, take the time to ask yourself if it’s worth your time to do so. Ask yourself, will this help me or others? Will this contribute to the betterment of the world? If the answer to either of those is no, then perhaps scroll on by is what one should do. Food for thought…☯️