Living above my means

09 Sunday Apr 2017

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fulfilled, full life, giving, grateful, happiness, helping others, live with less, money, Morocco, peace, simplicity, spending, stuff, thanks, tranquility, travel, wealth

I live above my means. Way above.

I eat and throw away more food than I need each day. I spend more money than I need to each day. I think of myself more than I need to each day. I worry about my future (and other things) more than I want to each day. It’s all too much.

Friends in Morocco tell me that as long as they have enough to get by each day, that’s all they need. These friends also take care of others, helping and giving as they can. And that ends up being a lot and often. It inspires me.

I spin and toil each day worrying about what to do next, how to live my dream, how to make more money, how to work harder to accomplish the goals set for me by others. It drains me.

I already have more than the majority of the rest of the world. How much more do I really need?

I want to live below my means. I want to live a life with less, with fewer, with smaller. A life focusing on today, on others, and a life of enough.

A juxtaposition

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by seejanesblog in Morocco

≈ 2 Comments

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calm, calmness, incha'allah, joy, peace, tempers

In my experience, Morocco is a strange juxtaposition of extreme kindness and sweetness, to loud and robust anger – – followed by a hug and a kiss. The pendulum swings wide. One minute two people are screaming at each other in an intersection, the next they’re hugging and kissing with hands over their hearts. Or a driver nearly plows through a group of pedestrians and the next they’re all sweet and apologizing about who’s in the wrong, incha’allah. I think the language itself lends itself to that because it’s so up-and-down in intonation that it sometimes might sound angry when really it isn’t. And they use hand gestures that in the USA we would be inclined to say ‘calm down!’ But here? Normal.

Being here has taught me to calm down. Tranquil. Incha’allah. Things are going to happen as they are so I might as well calm down about it and take it slowly. I like it. I like not being in the rat race. Incha’allah.

What I know for sure

06 Monday May 2013

Posted by seejanesblog in Observations

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contentment, fear, happiness, joy, life, Morocco, outlook, peace, travel

People frequently talk about how bad the world is/or has gotten; how horrible human beings are. I don’t buy that. Not at all. Reading back through history it seems people always think the world is worse in their time than it was in a previous time. Or they think they don’t want to raise their kids in ‘these times’. Again, I beg to differ.

While I’m not naive to problems and issues in the world, I don’t think people are bad. Nor do I think the world is overall a scary place. If it was there’d be far more horrible things occurring to each of us every day. There’d be far more scary days than non-scary days. And there just aren’t, for most of us. Sometimes I think people are most comfortable operating from a place of fear or a place of can’t. I can’t travel because it’s scary. I can’t go there because I could get hurt. I can’t leave because something might happen. I’m not going to try X because I might not succeed. I think our minds limit or stop many of us from trying new or unfamiliar things. And that includes traveling.

I believe we are all similar around the world, trying to live our lives in a way consistent with what we believe, to live happily, to connect with others, and to love those closest to us. Everywhere in the world I have seen that. I think that’s one of the main reasons I travel. It’s important for me to see how we are all similar no matter where we reside or what we do everyday in life.