I just began Tammy Strobel’s book, You Can Buy Happiness (and it’s cheap), yesterday after giving up
on the soft mush of Memories from Acorn
Hill. I finished the first short story in which everything turned out peachy
but couldn’t get more than a chapter into the other one before realizing that
reading it would be more of the same and I would gain nothing from the
exercise. Life is too short to eat milk-toast.
So I moved on to a non-fiction book for a change of pace.
Tammy, who has a blog I check in on frequently called Rowdy Kittens, has pulled all her research and her lifestyle
changes into a new book. I am only on page 40, but she has already given me lots to think about.
In her personal life, she has simplified to the nth degree.
She and her husband live in a 128 sq. foot home on wheels that they built. Minimal
space means minimal clothes, minimal furniture and minimal tablespoons. She loves
her lifestyle and I presume her husband embraces it, too, although I am not
sure of his thoughts.
Since I have been simplifying for the past two years (but
not to this extent, obviously, as one peruses our home), I understand the
benefit of removing clutter in both the physical environment as well as within
my mind. As things become fuzzier as I grow older, I think this will be all the
more important to me. There is also the time lost on maintenance and cleaning
to consider. I do not like to devote more time than absolutely necessary to the
chores. I want to open up my time to experiences. Hence my dilemma and
subsequent epiphany.
An economics major, Tammy has the stats to back up her words.
She also quotes other writers and statesmen. This statement from Robert Kennedy
gave legs to my thoughts and backbone to my decision to minimize, not only my
things, but my exposure to the excessive materialism and the mind-warping violence
and ridicule on TV that has become so prevalent.
The first comment is Tammy’s and the second part is quoted
in her book. I included the first paragraph of Kennedy’s words because it is
also relevant to my point of view.
Below is a quote from Bobby Kennedy on
what the Gross National Product means and more importantly what it does not
mean. He would have a made a fine
economist...
"Too much and too long, we seem
to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere
accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should
judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and
ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our
doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our
redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm
and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots
in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television
programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
"Yet the gross national product
does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education,
or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the
strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the
integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage;
neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to
our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life
worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud
that we are Americans."
Robert F. Kennedy
Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968
As Tammy drills down to her own place of happiness and hones
her point of view, I benefit from her observations. Her words resonate with me.
Food for thought and they take up minimal physical room.
So, as she delves further into the issue, she questions the
wisdom of excessive growth, not only with the GDP, but also on a personal
level. The more we make and the more we buy does not increase our core happiness.
Money is not the measure of our contentment and happiness,
our experiences are. Things are, well, just things. A bobble-head may remind us
of an excellent sport’s event but does it make us happy? Going to the event would.
Buying an artificial flower arrangement to match our living room might look
nice for a while but then it would just be part of the scene. Bringing in a
handful of flowers from the patch we grew by the back door would enchant us
every time we walked by it. Once past its prime, a new and different bundle could
appear, appreciated for its own uniqueness and brevity of appearance.
It occurs to me that it is unfortunate that we raise our children during the time
period of our peak acquisition. We are buying homes, furnishing them,
decorating them. We buy toys, swing sets and different sized bikes in rapid
succession. We renovate. We move, prompting more acquisitions. They see us buy
out of boredom, replace perfectly good cars and fill closets, theirs as well as
ours, with clothes. They embrace all this buying and expect something in every
store they are dragged to, often becoming frustrated to tantrum level when the
random object of their desire is not forthcoming. Then they see their parents
buying what they want and the seed is planted. ‘When I grow up…,” becomes an
internal mantra and a habit is born. Buying things will make me happy. When I
don’t get them, I am angry/sad.
Now, I have no basis in fact to substantiate this next thought and I will
learn more with research, but in cultures with extended families close by and where
grandparents, aunts and uncles are part of day-to-day living, is the acquisitive
influence diluted? For instance, I think we can assume that grandparents are in
a stage of life where they pretty much have all they need. They are comfortable
with their furniture, have knitted a few afghans to keep warm on chilly nights
and they are down to four coffee mugs in the cabinet. Lamps may have seen better
days but they see no point in replacing them. The books that line their shelves
are fewer than were there in earlier years but are old friends. Pictures lining
the wall are of family. Friendships, not things, give them the most pleasure. Family
antics make them laugh. Crayoned drawings are taped to their refrigerator.
I think back on the years when my children were growing up.
We bought a home, painted, put up wallpaper and decorated while my son was
little and my daughter approaching birth. Finances were tight so we made do and
did for ourselves. Visits to parks were more the norm than forays to stores. Playing
outside was fun and the swing set was in the grammar school playground. We traveled
to see family, hooking side trips to the seashore onto the journeys. After a number
of years, we built a house in another town and moved. Things were better, our jobs
providing more money to spend. Saving wasn’t on the horizon yet. We bought new furniture.
While my son was in school and my daughter on half-day kindergarten, I shopped
after school let out. She went along on my forays to buy fabric and placemats. I
made curtains and pillows. I bought things to decorate our home –a lot of
things – it was a country haven, befitting the time, complete with Shaker pegs
to hold stuff on the wall when the other surfaces were full.
My son shuns excess stuff in favor of his passions. My
daughter fills her home with things. I am getting the picture.
Facing up to responsibility is uncomfortable. I can see how
my actions may have subconsciously influenced them. Don't get me wrong, it wasn’t all
materialistic. I am glad we filled their childhood with experiences, too. They each
have varied interests and a love of the seashore and appreciation for bed and
breakfast inns. Visits to parks, boating on lakes and exploration in different
areas has had an impact on their lives – I see it now in their choices. I am
glad that I never felt the need to buy trinkets emblazoned with logos to
remember every trip. I am glad I never felt the compulsion to collect figurines
(oh, whoops, there is the Christmas village I put up every year during the
holidays). I have had way too many books over the years (all but my favorites have
now been sent out into the world for other readers to enjoy). I still need to
attack my closets so I am thankful for doors that close tightly. My art supplies
will never be reduced except by use.
There is balance in every life, mine and theirs included. Some
tip one way or another as we each work through our stages. The groundwork is
laid earlier than I thought. Was my mother’s habitual Saturday shopping day
part of my foundation? Perhaps. But so was the frugality of those early years
when money was tight and we made do. I count myself lucky to have had those
days when my best Christmas present of all time was the Barbie clothes my
mother painstakingly made for months on end and getting a bike was a really big
deal. I have carried the necessity of that philosophy in my pocket my whole
life. It colored many of my decisions. I also had the benefit of two
grandmotherly points of view when I grew up. One was frugal and loving, the
other more critical and cheap. Although at a distance and not visited more than a few times a
year, they both had an impact on my development.
Perhaps if there was a Tammy earlier in my life, I would
have understood my impact on others more fully and trimmed my sails. Would have
saved me from going through this exercise of purging now and, I am sure,
enhanced my life’s experiences in the process. Live and learn...again.
It is now obvious that it would have influenced my children’s
values as well.
Now that I look back with open eyes, I see that my
experiences and growth were probably like that
of many others of that time. I don’t
know if it is my time of life that is dictating my shift in course or the times
which are changing because of the accessibility of different points of view via the internet. All in all, there are few things I would alter because, ultimately,
they made me who I am. I would have assessed my materialism differently,
though. My personal search for happiness was impeded by it and I never knew. As I watch my children make their own choices, I both applaud and
lament.
I wouldn't be a mother if I didn't.
