Thursday, January 07, 2010

The concept of being 'rich'

Isn't it funny. This morning we came home from a friend's place (feed/water etc their chooks and cats while they are away) and we came home with eggs and fresh tomato. With the basil from our garden and the focaccia dough that's doing it's thing now, we'll have focaccia for dinner. Maybe mini quiches. Pulled out some banana muffins from the freezer that we made bulk of when we got 3 bags of banana, 8 capsi and 1kg of plums for $10 from the local grocer. So we don't have a 'lot' in the fridge certainly not a lot of prepack stuff and it's quite empty in terms of grocery day is still a week+ away and it's looking quite bare LOL, but I feel... what's the word?
Fresh eggs from cared for chooks, home grown and sun ripened tomato, fresh basil from the garden, handmade focaccia... if you've been there before you know what I mean. It's a 'good' and whole feeling.

Sort of linked to but not quite, that, I was in a dicussion the other day about if you won lotto, how much would be enough/would $1million be enough? My goodness I think even a million would be far too much - in terms of, people were saying they would need x million... yes, we'd pay out the house and a few people we know would get (otherwise anonymous) bank cheques delivered to their door, but after that, once we're self sufficient and the people we care about are taken care of financially, causes we believe in are supported and the money is shared around, that's about it... yk? We certainly wouldn't knock back a lotto win (if we played LOL) but we wouldn't go over the top either... (a) because it's so over-consumerist, (b) because it's just wasting then and there's so many other/better ways to use that money but (c) also because you hear of/see well-off/rich/millionaires about and even though they have 'everything'... there are often (not always) so many hassles or problems... people not wanting their friendship but their money, unhappiness in relationships, toy many toys and not enough time for the real stuff etc... you know 'he who dies with the most toys still dies' and what have you contributed? (I know a lot of well-off people aren't neccesarily like this/share/support causes, and I know it's a generalisation but I hope ykwim)

Being self-sufficient, loved, cared for, and in a community one way or another (online/IRL/combination or enjoying the solitary life) that supports you goes a very long way to feeling that you live a 'rich' (abundant) life... I think so, anway. Contentment.

Over the top of all this, as we know, is the reminder that $1million is an insane amount of money for those who struggle to eat even once a day... have access to the 'basics' and are just forgotten by the rest of the world.

1 comment:

Georgie said...

Yum! We're going to be eating some rather interesting meals over the next few weeks as we prepare for moving (y'know, those things at the bottom of the freezer and back of the pantry), but really, you often only need a bit of lateral thinking or a couple of yummy fresh ingredients.

I've always figured 1 million would be plenty too. For us, we'd probably buy a new/different house, but not some huge mansion, just something that suited us - and just having no mortgage would give you so much freedom.

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