Be happy – cut back on `things’

 

According to a Finnish proverb, “Happiness is a place between having too little and too much.”

I appreciate that the Finns seek such a balance.  (Honestly, my perception is that balance is easier for Scandinavians than for the rest of us, but that, as we say, is a whole `nother thing.)

I’m not too good at maintaining balance, what with feeling everybody’s joy and everybody’s pain – my own included – to such an extent that sometimes it quite wears me out.  Still, I think a lot of Americans would like to adopt the proverb of their Finnish neighbors, thousands of miles away, and find balance, too.

I seek the place between having too little and too much – whether or not that equals happiness.

 Sometimes I watch Oprah.  I watched Oprah the day she visited with two families who had agreed to “do without” for one week.  In an effort to educate people about the extent and consequences of the wasteful living of most Americans, Oprah videotaped the families during that long week.

No dining out, no take-out meals, no vending machine snacks. Four-minute showers (“I’m not sure I can get clean!” lamented one dad).  Lights on only as necessary; heat turned way down. One hour a day of TV.  And NO computers, except for homework.

You know what one boy said, when told he had to turn off his computer for a week?  He said, “I can’t live without it!” He was five years old.  Five.

 It is difficult to walk through this life awake and not sense the searing realities of diminishing resources, of global warming.  Family members in Oprah’s study worked at cutting back on wasting resources.  It was not easy.

 When I was a kid, natural resources were a bountiful given.  Plenty of fresh water and cheap electricity and endless oil for the huge stove looming in the corner of the dining room.  Gasoline was cheap and plentiful – though it seemed most people didn’t drive very far in their one family car. 

My mom cooked dinner every night, in those pre-fast-food years when nobody’s mother casually suggested, “Let’s go out tonight.”  Go OUT?  For DINNER?  Mom often made enough for leftovers, which we ate two nights later.

The families in Oprah’s study put leftovers into the refrigerator, only to throw them in the trash in a few days. (Possibly this is not a good illustration, as it hits very close to home.)  Anyway, one man was astonished to notice how many big black trash bags of food – and other items – his family simply discarded, thoughtlessly. 

In America, many of us own too much and are wasteful; our possessions and indulgences compromise our happiness.  (We try not to think of those who own too little.)

Oprah’s experiment hinted that happiness includes tender care of our earth’s resources and involves discernment and sacrifice.  I’m not sure the Finnish proverb accurately describes happiness, but I think those two families learned some things about balance.  I seek that balance, too.

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(Joanne Bradbury Peterson spent an idyllic childhood in Edmonds, then moved to North Central Washington. After years of raising a family, teaching and traveling, she is happily at home in Edmonds – again. She can be reached at bjbpete@aol.com.)