This Thrifted Life

Emily over at Remodeling My Life wrote a great post the other day about how often we view life as a competition–even when we’re striving for what doesn’t actually exist. The ideal home that’s perfectly organized and decorated. The ideal kitchen where we whip up scrumptious feasts every evening. Instead of feeling left behind by others who seem to have it all together, Emily noted it’s about “Doing what you have the means, the desire, the ability to do, and doing it the best you can.”

As I look around my home at the works-in-progress (hello, wiring) and the countless projects ahead, this post was a great reminder to appreciate the work I’m doing now and not fret about all the work yet to be done. With help from some family members, we’ve ripped up old rotted floors, repaired toilets, and rewired over half the house in the past couple of months. Though we still have many more months of remodeling on the calendar, we’re making progress. One project, one room, one day at a time.

Consciously Frugal has been taking part in the No Impact experiment, and has come to a surprising conclusion: she’s a lot more wasteful than she thought! Even those of us who try to pay close attention to our habits and waste can find ourselves wasting a whole lot more than we ever thought possible.

Embarking on this path has been challenging, enlightening, shaming, and a million other things. My limited understanding is evident in questions such as “Is local better than organic? Is the organic label even trustworthy? Do I buy a ‘natural’ product, or should I make it myself? What’s my comfort level? Shouldn’t I be pushing that comfort level? Is a free item ok, even if it’s processed? Is having both a balanced budget and a balanced mind impossible? If I shave corners in some areas, am I a failure in the whole grand scheme?” I continue to find new questions to ask of myself every day.

And what I am coming to realize is that age-old truth: No man is an island. Moving forward and making sure all the questions are answered is not why I’m here. Life is happening right now. It’s a million fragmented pieces that may look a little jagged, but make up a Whole nonetheless.

It’s so easy to abdicate responsibility. I am slowly learning that I cannot claim to be guilty of one thing and not another. I have transgressed fully. I am guilty of everything.

Why do we so often insist that life is static and linear? Do we refuse to see the fluidity of life because we believe this is simply our inheritance as Westerners? We have so many possibilities before us every day that we simply refuse to see. Of course, we are all born into unique situations and circumstances, and we all grow up with our own individual biases and viewpoints. We will always see the world through our own eyes. But refusing to look beyond our own colored lenses is a recipe for loneliness and dissatisfaction. To value only out of habit what we have been taught to value is no value at all.

 Annie Leonard, in “The Story of Stuff,” says…

 “We are in this ridiculous situation where we go to work, maybe two jobs even, and we come home and we’re exhausted so we plop down on our new couch and watch TV and the commercials tell us ‘You SUCK!’ so we gotta go to the mall to buy something to feel better, then we gotta go to work more to pay for the stuff we just bought so we come home and we’re more tired so you sit down and watch more TV and it tells you to go to the mall again and we’re on this crazy work-watch-spend treadmill. And we could just stop.”

 That’s all we really have to do: stop. Question ourselves. Question the consumer culture. Question, question, question.

Intentional living is a practice that I am slowly fashioning into a lifestyle. Each day contains so much purpose and promise, yet we rush through our hours, counting down the time until we get to this and that task, feeling stretched and thin by the end of another tiring day. So many resources have shown up in my life that mentioned some sort of mindful living. In No Impact Man, Colin Beavan writes, “At what age did I start to think that where I was going was more important than where I already was? When was it that I began to believe that the most important thing about what I was doing was getting it over with? Knowing how to live is not something we have to teach children. Knowing how to live is something we have to be careful not to take away from them.” And while reading The Gift of an Ordinary Day, I came across a concept that really hit home with me: partners are all around you, if you would just take the time to stop and look around. So many people and relationships are available to us, but we, in our busyness, pass them by without even a cursory glance. Finally, Timothy Miller’s How to Want What You Have presents a plethora of ideas and methods that lead to living more intentionally; by paying attention to our thoughts and internal prejudices, we can break our destructive patterns and begin to think anew.

 And, of course, Jesus Himself asked, “And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span?” and “Is not life more than food, and the body not more than clothing?” He did not spend His time on Earth at a mall or scheduling paid speaking engagements. He healed the sick (even on the Sabbath), fed the hungry, spent time with outcasts, and loved the unloved. He paid attention to people.

 Once you start practicing a bit more mindfulness, you will be amazed at the paths that appear before you. I’m not talking about karma or The Secret. When you open your eyes to the world that’s really around you—the sick, the kind, the helpful, the poor—you will finally see the opportunities that were there all along.

 Recently, we were looking for a realtor and had little idea of where to begin. Right around the time we were seeking recommendations from friends, I sold something on craigslist, and the couple who picked it up were very nice. We decided to chat with them a bit rather than just rushing through the sale, and, lo and behold, she was a realtor. She ended up being the partner we needed.

 And a few weeks ago, I was rushing into the library, thinking about how I needed to quickly scoop up a book and then head to Target. While walking to the door, I identified my thoughts and wondered why I felt the need to rush through such a simple task—even this was life. Only a few moments later, I ran into a relative of my husband’s and was able to catch up with her for a bit, without feeling the need to hurry the conversation along. Sure, she would’ve been in the library if I had been thinking along those lines or not; but I can’t say if I would’ve recognized it as just as rich a part of life as anything else, or merely a coincidence.

 Intentional living is not about over-analyzing. It’s simply about living with the knowledge that every moment we are here is Real Life, even the minutes and hours that might seem mundane. It’s about paying attention.