Sunday, March 14, 2004
Simplicity
Today we went to the forum about Lent and simplicity. We talked a bit about simplicity and how it played in our lives. My wife and I can say with some integrity that we live simple lives. We're not poor, we just don't have any money.
We are pack rats but we don't buy things just to have things. I am due to graduate in a couple of months, and then I need to get a job. This will potentially double our income. If we can live off of the higher income and spend most of the second income on our savings and getting out from underneath the debt of student loans, we could have almost half of our loans paid off in a year, and we'd have more money on a month to month basis than we have now.
We live in an apartment complex where we can see that many of our neighbors are worse off than we are. We have two cars, many of the other families only have one. We have an apartment full of furniture and books, but from what I can see our neighbors appear to not have much. We have been blessed with more than enough to live with, and we worry that my future employment will not hurt us in some way.
It is tempting to think that with just a little more money we could have just a little bit more, and then we'd be satisfied. We are satisfied. A friend of mine spent lots of money upgrading his home entertainment system and when he helped me upgrade mine he was frustrated that I didn't buy the biggest and the best. I bought what was better than I had and sufficient for my needs. I have to admit that my computer would still be a 4 gig Mac running OS 8.6 if he hadn't given me gifts of a 20 gig hard drive and OS 9.1. Am I grateful? Yes. I've found that my computer may not be fast enough to play some of the games I want to play (such as ONI) but I can't fill this hard drive up with stuff. It's the first time I haven't pushed the limits of my storage capacity, and this is coming from an addict to POV-Ray and Python. To be fair, I did loose 70 MB of source code in a hard drive crash and failed back ups.
Perhaps I don't live simply, I just think that I do. ¶ 3:05 PM
We are pack rats but we don't buy things just to have things. I am due to graduate in a couple of months, and then I need to get a job. This will potentially double our income. If we can live off of the higher income and spend most of the second income on our savings and getting out from underneath the debt of student loans, we could have almost half of our loans paid off in a year, and we'd have more money on a month to month basis than we have now.
We live in an apartment complex where we can see that many of our neighbors are worse off than we are. We have two cars, many of the other families only have one. We have an apartment full of furniture and books, but from what I can see our neighbors appear to not have much. We have been blessed with more than enough to live with, and we worry that my future employment will not hurt us in some way.
It is tempting to think that with just a little more money we could have just a little bit more, and then we'd be satisfied. We are satisfied. A friend of mine spent lots of money upgrading his home entertainment system and when he helped me upgrade mine he was frustrated that I didn't buy the biggest and the best. I bought what was better than I had and sufficient for my needs. I have to admit that my computer would still be a 4 gig Mac running OS 8.6 if he hadn't given me gifts of a 20 gig hard drive and OS 9.1. Am I grateful? Yes. I've found that my computer may not be fast enough to play some of the games I want to play (such as ONI) but I can't fill this hard drive up with stuff. It's the first time I haven't pushed the limits of my storage capacity, and this is coming from an addict to POV-Ray and Python. To be fair, I did loose 70 MB of source code in a hard drive crash and failed back ups.
Perhaps I don't live simply, I just think that I do. ¶ 3:05 PM
