Making Do and the Good Life

ILLUSTRATION BY MELINDA JOSIE

 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 
 for we brought nothing into the world, 
so that we can take nothing out of it;
but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

I Timothy 6:6-8

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be, 
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed;
to turn, turn will be our delight

'til by turning, turning, we come round right.

Do you remember the month or so earlier this year when Marie Kondo's name was on everyone's lips? She was the guru of simplicity as true joy, encouraging people to jettison their junk, preaching the gospel of goodbye to all the stuff which encumbers us. At the time I both applauded Ms Kondo's message and cautioned that she isn't the first person or movement to suggest that we pare down. We tend to respond with zeal and then lie down until the feeling goes away. http://lionlamb-bowmanville.blogspot.com/2019/01/freedom-of-simplicity-marie-kondo.html

A few weeks ago the Globe and Mail ran an opinion piece article with the title The Life-Changing Magic of Making Do by Benjamin Leszsz. Of course he pays passing homage to Kondo but the article has a thoughtful scope worthy of our attention. He notes:

Our bloated culture of consumption extends far beyond clothing. Each year, Canadian adults spend about $9,000 for consumer packaged goods – about twice as much as 25 years ago. We replace our smartphones every 25 months. We swap out TVs like toothbrushes. We browse for Instant Pots, pet-hair-removal gloves and spa bath pillows when we’re at dinner, when we’re driving and when we’re drunk. Shopping isn’t just convenient; it’s inescapable. The shiny and new is seldom more than a click and a day away.

Unsurprisingly, we are drowning in stuff. Despite the average Canadian home doubling in size over the past generation – and family size shrinking – the self-storage industry is booming, with nearly 3,000 jam-packed facilities nationwide.

It's rather sobering to think of how much we acquire and accumulate, all the while looking for more, even buying other people's discards at the now endless round of yard sales in every community. I'll say here that I'm impressed by Ruth, my wife, who loves to cook and bake. She regularly resists my enthusiasm to buy her the latest culinary gadget, figuring that they just take up room. Who am I to argue? 

Even though we are often described as consumers in our society, it is rare for us to fully consume, to employ what we purchase until it reaches its useful end. 

It's interesting that an illustration for the article shows a darning needle, once used to mend something that was torn so that it didn't have to be replaced. To me it looks a lot like a Christian cross. Jesus spoke far more about simplicity than sex, but we tend to ignore him in our "what's next?" culture. The Good News is that the "good life" is rooted in the love of God, not the love of stuff. What a concept!

Benjamin Leszsz also quotes Laurie Santos who created a Yale University course called Psychology and the Good Life 

Laurie Santos, who created Yale University’s most popular course, Psychology and the Good Life, often says, “Our intuitions about what to do to be happy are wrong.” This simple truth is at the heart of making do, which emphatically reminds us that our things will never make us happy. Our things are a healthy, normal, inevitable part of life, but in the end, they are just things. By asking of them only what they can give us – not love, or joy, or a sense of purpose or connection – we are far more likely to get it. That doesn’t guarantee happiness, but it clears the path, highlighting an essential, unmissable truth: The stuff of life isn’t stuff at all.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-life-changing-magic-of-making-do/