The Best Laid Plans......

On my other blog, Daily Wanderer, I wrote about "sincere motivation" and how that removes fear and anxiety.

Yesterday was a day that could be summed up quite nicely as the subject line says.... The best laid plans..." and we know the rest of that phrase.
This big adventure was hit with a curve ball, Emery got sick and then something else happened that needed immediate action for health reasons. I had to walk away from my adventure yesterday morning early and drive nearly 100 miles round trip for medical needs.
For a long time, I thought about, should I just pretend this adventure went on as planned or to be honest and share the story of my choices that had to be made ?
As you can see I chose the high road, no matter what some will think.
There is no fear in me of what people will think about the choice we made to seek medical need above playing a roll of pioneer family, because I had sincere motivation for both roads.
Sincere motivation was at the begining of the adventure and also to ensure the proper medical attention was given to my family.
I ended up gone most of the day yesterday. The adventure went down the drain. I had long ago learned the lesson I had sought from the adventure anyway. I had just wanted a refresher maybe.

All is well and the correct choice was made in my mind. I would rather be honest about all this than be a fraud.
I thought a lot about this adventure while I was out yesterday. There was so much of it that served as a painful reminder of the way we used to live, that it was hard and exhausting and in retrospect, really not necessary for life. The children learned work ethics and for that I am grateful and they have skills I honestly hope the world never requires they need, for that would assume the world was in some disaster.
Other than that, that life was just me trying to prove some point maybe or showing off.

Its taken me 52 years of living to discover that living simply is not about making your own butter, spinning your own wool, making soap, milking animals and growing your own food. There is nothing simple about that life as Melissa wrote about. Those things are wonderful crafting skills to have and animals and gardening create amazing work ethics, but they don't make for instant simple life.
Simple living is a mindset.If I look honestly at my life, it was probably a bit of an ego thing for me, "see what I can do" or perhaps to prove some point that we as a family can do this or that. That wasn't all my motivation certainly, but some of it I am sure. I struggle constantly with being an over achiever. Its run in my family for generations. We all want to be the best at everything we do.
I am learning........(said slowly and deliberately)
Life is a lesson book, if we are willing to study its pages.
Living simply is about choices and not letting "things", possessions, become the focus of our day, our week, our year, or any part of our life. Its about being in tune with the things that are true sources of joy. Relationships, long conversations, knowledge, wisdom and being secure enough that you don't have to get your emotional highs from the externals in life.

When you remove the possibility of being tempted by the material world by being some campaign manager for the homestead life, like I was, then you have taken away most of the opportunity to get lost to the material world and so the need to be strong and stand against the power of ownership of things, requires less personal strength. Not much will power needed, well not on the same level shall we say. Its like dieting and first removing all the food that tempts you from the house. It works in what choices you make at home but it never teaches you how to make the choice on your own any where else. The learning to manage the situation has not been learned . There is a time for that in dieting perhaps, but in the world of simplicity, its more of a moral issue to decide not to get sucked up into the rat race and consumership that holds you captive with its slimy grip of overspending and over consuming. That stresses you and makes your vision blurred between want and need.
I lived this homestead life for years, wrote about it for magazines, had Japanese TV film us for a TV show over there and so the adventure was not anything to me but a reminder of our past, not so mcuh about a lesson for me on the blessing of modern conveniences. I get that.
It has been difficult at best for me to transition from a lifestyle of "this is wrong", " this is sin" and "we don't do that" to the life I am living today. I feel so much more in tune with the big plan of things. I see God so much more clearly and certainly more lovingly.

As far as modern life, turning on the light switch is wonderful, having lamplight some nights by choice is wonderful too.
Hauling water is painful, turning on the faucet in the kitchen is a blessing.
Depending on the garden for our food, well this year we would have starved.
One day of this adventure, reminded me of years of struggle. Emery too. He lived his first 21 years Little House style, on the Kansas prairie. Wind whipping under the house in winter, water freezing in the drinking bucket in the house. Hardships. Emery certainly didn't find the adventure this weekend, fun.
Painful reminders about his early years.
If you have never lived this way, I suspect it is a bit of fun to see the comparisons to life then and now. To value more what we have.
But from my perspective, it showed me that for some, myself included, choosing to live this way all those years was a bit like wanting to spend much time in prayer and charitable acts, having no discipline to do it, so choosing to become a cloistered nun, where those things are at hand all the time. Their are no other distractions drawing you here and there constantly.
A hermit monk removes many temptations. A homesteader out in the boondocks, with not much connection to the outside world is perhaps seeking the same. Now don't write me if you are a homesteader out in tin buck two and defend your life. I am writing about me here and not you, my choices, my view as I see it from my experience.
The big adventure served well to remind me to pull back and walk slower. Love the lessons of nature and to be comfortable in silence. One day did that for me. To value quiet time. To keep hiking...to look deeply at life. To always be seeking the lesson in things.
The other aspects of simple life are with me always. No need to live life rushed and trying to pass all the cars on the road. No need to be impatient in line at the grocery store. What is 1/2 hour of your time ? If it means getting angry about some delay, then you really need to slow down and not walk such a tight rope. Something is wrong, when a one minute stop at a red light makes you feel rushed, angry and frustrated. One minute...wow.!!
I met a young man at the store yesterday, in the U.S for 4 months from Nepal. He is here alone, no family. He told me he knows no one, because everyone is so busy, so rushed and so unfriendly. He comes from a town where the whole village welcomes a stranger and sets out a meal for them. All standing in line to welcome a visitor personally.
He acted like my conversation to him was gold. That I spoke to him while he waited on me was a gift to him.
Three minutes in line....a conversation. Simply living life without being rushed.
This post was a ramble, from here there and everywhere. The point. I learned my lesson from my one day adventure. My lesson.. memories and my personal agenda for years was not without ego.
I know what I am grateful for in modern life. I like what we have today as long as I have the ownership and I am working it and its not working me. I know the right choices can be made with all those things around us. Cell phones included. I had one with me yesterday. It was a blessing, but it didn't rule me. I did not let it distract me from my business.
I love toilet paper and fluffy wash cloths.
Phones are life lines.
Even though we had medical needs yesterday, the first choice in treatment was natural and herbal. But I appreciate modern medicine too when it does not harm.
Maybe I feel a bit like my personal experience with the one day adventure was preaching to the choir. But even the choir needs to be refreshed from time to time.
So in my modern life, would I change anything now, after stepping back in time for a day. Nope. Keep things the same, doing some things the old fashioned way for the good it brings me. Baking my own bread, heating the house with wood. Making soap, I like mine better than what's in the store. Lamps lit some nights for the warm glow it gives heart and soul.
Choices and options. Hauling water. A pain in the neck and hand I might add. Showers are wonderful. Body odor is not.
Calling my loved ones on the phone, priceless.
Talking on the cell phone while you are out to eat with other people is rude. Cell phones while driving is dangerous.
Over scheduling your life is crazy. Working frantically for the bigger and better is pointless. You won't take any of it where you are going in the end.
Keep in mind the song, "Cats in the Cradle". Think about the ending.
Slowing down is good. Its the value we get from the old days. When clocks did not dictate so much of the rules.
Simple is best, its more honest. Lets you see who you really are.
What was good about the old days, the values etc can be yours now, sounds like a salesman's pitch, if you get off the fast track and see these good things from the old days such as, ethics, morals, compassion, neighborliness, and propriety can still exist in your life.
The best thing about modern life, is we have a choice on how we choose to live.