Life Statement - Off the road less traveled and into the under brush ... rethinking your life

In Downsizing Your Life many ways were discussed to shrink the amount of space you live in, but there is another approach which in recent years has helped me to shrink my footprint even further.  Take a trip, the longer the better, and better still, make it a hiking / camping trip where you have to carry everything on your back!

Perhaps the greatest gift I ever received was given to me by my father.  I'm sure he didn't realize it at the time, it is just part of who he is, but my brothers and I all now possess this same gift.

When we were children we watched (and often helped) our father and learned.  He always assumed that he could do pretty much anything that came his way, whether it was fixing cars, the house, or assembling some new gadget he had purchased.  If it was something he didn't know anything about, he might buy a book on the subject and use it for reference.  It wasn't just his assumption that he could do it that taught us, it was also what became sort of a standing joke: he would say to us "When all else fails, read the instructions!"

If you are reading this, you are already extremely wealthy!  You may not be rich by your definition or even by the definition of the society you live in, but by the standards of a large percentage of the world's population, you are in fact, rich!  You can read, you have access to a computer and the internet - this makes you much better off than many people in the world.

What is the longest you have ever gone without eating?  Has it ever been even 48 hours?  Many people have gone without food for a week or more, or had regular but insufficient food for months or even years.  By these standards you (and in some countries, even the homeless) are in fact very wealthy, so what are you going to do with all your wealth?

Years ago some new "Green" organization was being created by a group of people and, among other things, one of their stated goals included something about making a new generation of "less toxic" houses.  This got me to thinking, if someone offered to sell you a house that was 10% less toxic, would you want to buy it?  My reaction would be "what about the other 90% of the toxins still in the house?".