In the beginning there was nothing. In the beginning of what? Well in the beginning of the ideas that have lead to where I am today.
The real beginning that I am referring to is when I got married to the most amazing person in the world. Her name is Alison by the way, and in the beginning (sorry, that is becoming quite the bad pun) I honestly had no idea how awesome, amazing, remarkable, beautiful, capable she is. I am still surprised and hopelessly one upped by her (in this case being one upped by my wife is very positive and beneficial) everyday. I count it lucky that she has kept me on the team!
Okay so when we got married we were a bit younger by our current cultures standard for when people will typically get married, Alison was 21 and I was 23. We were both in college, and getting closer to finishing our Bachelors Degree’s. We counted it a pretty big blessing that we were able to afford a place to live and tuition for the semester. When we could buy a five dollar pizza we were doing pretty good, and feeling even better.
So what I am getting at here is when we first started out we had very few worldly possessions. Looking back I would almost say that we had way more than we even wanted or needed.
The list of what we didn’t have follows:
- We had no cell phones (we still don’t today)
- No cable or satellite television service
- A unique collection of , plates, dishes, bowls, and pots and pans (this means that we didn’t have a matching collection of more than four of anything)
- A car worth more than $500 dollars (we were living on the edge actually having a car I know, more so one that worked)
- A full time Job
That list is what comes to mind, and isn’t meant to illistrate the poverty we were subject to but only what we didn’t have. Overall we were pretty happy because we didn’t have any of these things to have to deal with in our lives.
What weren’t we dealing with? Well we didn’t have huge monthly payments for television service or for cell phone service. This saved us at the time about $120 dollars a month, and set us free in many respects. We were newly married and had so much free time to spend with each other because we didn’t have the TV to come between us and help us waste our time away.
Not having a cell phone then or now rarely causes us any inconvienence. One year when we were considering getting them, we kept track of the times that we would have benefitted from a cell phone in a month (over a land line). We were hardly able to count two or three times. So we stuck with our land line at home and that runs us about 20 dollars a month including some long distance calling (some months we go crazy and will spend upwards of 35 dollars). The nice thing about the phone is that we aren’t shackled to a minimum monthly payment that cost far more than what it is worth.
Never getting the cell phone has actually as well afforded us a wonderful amount of privacy that I didn’t realize I was enjoying until being around people at work who have their cell phones ringing relentlessly. I know that having one is an essential for some people, but I will argue that for most people it is a huge luxury and actually lowering their quality of life.
Living without a huge matching collection of kitchenware we thought would actually not be so cool. In hind site we purchased a set of glasses so we could have glasses to drink out of, but otherwise we hardly notice. So it is nice not having our cuppords stuffed full with unneeded stuff.
The automobile. This is quite a subject. Starting out with one that worked, required little work and cost almost nothing was a huge blessing. Not having a payment on a car was instrumental in not having to work, and freed me up to spend time with my wife, not at the job supporting the car.
Not having a full time job? Well that was mainly because I was young and stupid, but I tell myself it was also because I was finishing my degree at the time and had to study a lot. So overall I think that we could have had more money if we had jobs, but if I did it all over again I would have worked a bit more, that is all.
So we were living in what most people would consider poverty, and by the classification of income we were living poverty. I will tell you though that we weren’t and have never been happier since then except when we decided to grow our little family.
The first summer we were married that came after our first year of school as married students we made the decision to go and work on a ranch in north-eastern Nevada that was 45 miles from the nearest gas station, and 60 miles from the nearest hospital, grocery store, or movie theatre. I know that this isn’t for everyone but having none of the above and also having almost nothing of the commercial world around us was a dream come true. We really felt free. We had so much free time to enjoy each other, read, walk, and whatever else we wanted.
So what is the essence of what I am saying? Well 934 words later, it is that when my wife and I have a lot less stuff and distractions in our lives, we are much more content, and satisfied with our world around us.
I know that many of the distractions and much of the stuff in our lives we deal with are unavoidable. The things I’ve talked about though here don’t fall into that category at all. All of the things I have talked about are avoidable.
Do you ever feel like your life is cluttered with way to much stuff? That there are to many distractions? Well try throwing out some of what is there and see if there is a difference. For me I can imagine what my life would be like if I tried to fit TV, Cell Phones, and other things into it. It scares me. It scares my wife even more, because she has experienced great things without them.
What do you think? Drop me a comment or email with your ideas or for things that I have neglected that you think are obvious.
