Friday, January 07, 2005

Including my family

A reader asked:


Not to be nosy, but what does your wife and child think of your living
simply quest?

There have been a lot of 'I' and 'My/Mine' in the posts...

Good question.

My child is young, but he did tell me he wants me to work less & be
home with him more
.

Most of my ideas would make life for my family less convenient, a fact that has not been lost on my wife. I don't want to be taking away the facilities that they depend on every day. For example, when I propose moving to a smaller home, I am taking away the generous indoor playspace they have today.

At the same time, my wife & I agree that we want to consume less energy, produce less waste, spend more time together, make our work more meaninful, and improve our health. We also agree that we are overwhelmed by the amount of stuff we own. We are reminded of this fact every time we clean for guests or before the maid service comes. (Yes, we clean the house so that we can pay other people to clean the house!)

So as long as I remember to be senstive to the needs of my family, they are interested and involved in the plan.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got a question: Why do this? Are you trying to reduce consumption since it helps you personally? Is it a religious thing? Or to save the environment? Or...?

If it's just because you've realised that you don't need it, then why fret over how you're working on simplifying?

Jay Bazuzi said...

Anon: I'm trying to do this for several reasons:

- I want to live in a sustainable way. I want my impact on the universe to be something that doesn't do so much damage that it can't recover.

- If possible, I want to have so little impact that the earth can recover from the damage done by my predecessors. (I'm not here to blame them, though).

I'm probably no where near these goals yet, but I'm working on it.

- I want to organize my life so that my time is spent on the most meaningful, rewarding work possible. Time with my family, time in service of others, time to learn & explore myself & the universe around me, time for sex.

- I want to improve my physical and emotional health. Today I'm fat & out of shape, but I want to be healthy & live a long time.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jay,

I was reading this article by Eric Meyer and instantly thought of you. I know, it's a little bit off topic, but I thought you'd enjoy reading it. :)

-james adams

Anonymous said...

Oh, and I'm not saying that you're guilty of violating your son's privacy in the sense of the article. I just thought you'd enjoy reading it, being a blogger and a parent yourself. :)

-james

Anonymous said...

Random googling sometimes leads to old friends. How's life going for you? Now we get to play guess the old friend :).

http://www.livejournal.com/users/me_not_you

of course

http://www.pinkbelly.org/images

Jay Bazuzi said...

Donald! Good to hear from you. Drop me an onymous mail already!

 
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