Living Simple

CHECK YOUR COST OF LIVING

Of what use is it really to buy the things you really don’t need with money you really don’t have, just so you can impress those that may not even be looking at you? It does not make any sense to me. Of what use is it to live in a fine house, gotten through mortgage to be paid over the next thirty years of your life, just so that you make yourself feel like you own a house or a landed property? Wisdom is certainly deeper than that and life also is certainly worth more than looking over your shoulders to see if your creditors are after you.

Some say it’s about the trending middle class boom, but I say it’s about the new noose around the necks of unsuspecting people who think real estate is really their friend. What is real in real estate anyway? I have asked a few friends about what is real in real estate, but none has given me an answer yet. So I guess maybe there is no answer, and if that is the case, then it must be either that it’s a make believe estate or the people who depend on it are not telling themselves the truth.

This article actually is not about real estate as it were, but about the realness of living within one’s means in relation to purpose. Life has never been about competition of who gets what first or any such thing. Life is simply about living in accordance with purpose and the various provisions given from God to fulfill such purpose. People have gotten into untold debts, which have led to broken relationships, battered friendships and they have gone through painful experiences just to keep life going on according to the fantasy in their heads. But my question always is this, why do so much to keep a dying narrative going on? It doesn’t make sense to me and neither do I find wisdom in it at all. Am I against the good things in life? Heavens, no! Should people not expand their frontiers in what they do? Absolutely, they should. But what exactly do we spend time expanding and towards what end do we do so much; especially when nothing really lasts forever in this world. One man’s PhD certificate is someone else’s tinder for lighting the Jiko (Coal Pot), the fine Land Rover of yesterday has become a towing van today and the trend has not changed and will not likely do so.

Stop and take a look

There is a saying that you should look before you leap. I believe I first heard that line many years ago in my primary school English class.

Of what use is it really to buy the things you really
don’t need with the money you really don’t have,
just so you can impress those that really may not
be looking at you?. “

We certainly live in a fast paced world right now and sometimes I wonder where people are running to and what is making them run. The matatu (public bus) driver is in such a hurry to pick the next set of passengers at the very next bus stop just a few meters ahead and he doesn’t seem to care if he is driving carelessly or not. He is blind to the other road users around him. The company board of directors is in such a hurry to meet their yearly target that they really don’t care what the state of their staff health is like, until someone collapses in exhaustion. The church too has joined the race to gather more people but forgot the admonition of the Lord for the proper feeding of the few through accurate discipleship. Recently, I heard that the global debt is about 217 trillion dollars. Then I asked myself, who is this unknown entity that the entire globe owes such a huge amount of money? I still don’t have an answer yet. Or could it be that, just as Jesus spoke about the ruler of this world that the global debt is owed to this world’s ruler? Just my thoughts and musings, but musings I pray will make someone stop and check his or her cost of living.

What is cost of living?

Yes, I began this article by talking about how people spend money for things they mostly don’t need, but my overall thought is actually deeper than that. I think my thought is captured in the words of Jesus when He said “what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” I know there are people that don’t want to get religious especially as it relates to the scripture I just quoted. Sincerely, I too have dumped religion for something more practical and critical in nature. So my angle won’t be from religious thoughts. Permit me to interpret that verse of scripture in a little more down to earth way. See it this way “of what gain is it to chase and gather the things of this world and lose your ability to stop and see with critical eyes what you are becoming while chasing them.” Many people are already soulless even while still very alive on earth. They have lost the ability to stop and think about what they have become, what they are becoming and what they are making others become for their selfish sakes and agendas. They are so caught up with life that they have forgotten how to be human. They have become robots, batteries to keep this failing system of the world going. I cry for such, because they have already lost their souls and they just can’t stop to check. It is a soulless man that will boast of having five title deeds to various properties, while living in the midst of a thousand families who have no shelter over their heads. It is a soulless government that will certify poisonous foreign pharmaceutical products that will certainly kill or maim its people, just for the sake of foreign money and aid. It is a soulless security officer that will turn his eyes away from child prostitution just because he has been paid with foreign currency to do so. How soul dead can we be really be as humans against other humans?

Simple living is possible

Life in its simplest form is possible and it’s beautiful. Money is not the root of evil I must say. It is the love and the desire for what money can buy that births evil. It is the love and desire to live beyond one’s means that births all manner of ideas to make more money and thus more debts and compromises of all sorts set in. It is ok to have the good things in life, but it is not ok to live like life will not end some day.

Cut your cost of living

This is not just about cutting your daily spending in order to live within your means and avoiding debts, it is about stopping to check what you are becoming while you live your daily life. For as a man thinks, so is he. As he continues to think, so he remains. We are what we constantly engage our hearts to do and chase after daily. What will it cost you in eternity and in posterity for the life you are living right now?

Stop and check.