You aren’t what you own
Posted on | July 23, 2009 | No Comments
My immediate family have always been amazed at my ability to live quite happily on very little income – in fact the most miserable I ever was was when I tried to keep 2 jobs going to garner more disposable income. I know this as recently I’ve been culling old posts from this blog and 5 years ago I was miserable, stressed, run down and incredibly overworked and as a result developed ME/CFS.
Now I have far less income yet I and my family manage to survive quite happily on it – we don’t own a great deal but what we do own adds value to our lives and centres those lives around the home.
I think that’s the problem with most folk today, they want to own things for the sake of owning them; designer labels, the latest toy, flashy car.. Where they live tends to be more storage space than home; there’s no need for all this.
Even cigarettes and alcohol are unnecessary expenses; they add little to your life but ill health in certain cases, I know many would disagree with that but I ask you – what do they truly do for you? Do they make you happy or is it just an expensive addiction, an escape from a life you don’t really like very much?
I say: don’t pay to escape your life; save to change it.
The only thing I want to own is my own home – not for financial reasons; I don’t see it as an investment, I see it as somewhere to put down roots and raise my daughter, somewhere I can change and decorate and do to as I please.
..But most importantly I want my own home because it is somewhere that I won’t be forced to leave at the whim of the owner.
If people put more importance on the things filling the home than the home itself then in my opinion they have very skewed priorities, a home is not a base of operations, it isn’t somewhere you eat and sleep before going away to live your life – that’s a hotel or a bed and breakfast.
A home, to me at least, is the place you wish you were when you’re somewhere else, a place you want to get back to, that you want to invite others to.
More than anything in this world I want a home for me and my family. That’s why I’m pushing myself to do this degree and why I’m trying as hard as I can to make myself employable despite my health issues – I don’t want to live in storage for the rest of my life and I refuse to subject my daughter to that; even if we can’t move on, she will be able to – I’ll make sure of it.
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