After yesterday’s plod back in time, I sort of stayed there for most of the day, I bet it is one of those things that every generation goes through, but the more I looked at my home now and compared it to my first home of my own, the more I realised that life couldn’t be easier now if it tried in comparison. I know that we all make choices as to what we have in our homes and what we don’t partly based on money, but thinking back to a time where if I had the spare money I treated myself to the luxury of going to the launderette and if I didn’t, I did our washing in the bath, it just proved how far I and the world has come. It seems that every so called improvement to our lives, is actually just another way of doing nothing, with everything slowly being linked to your mobile phone the future looks as though we will be physically doing even less in the future. The unfortunate thing is, I bet that that just means more people sitting doing nothing in front of a screen of some sort, I honestly don’t believe that having more free time will find the majority actually using it do anything worthwhile. We don’t need more labour saving devices, what we really need are things that make us want to and actually do more.
Right now in the UK they are running a competition that the first phase has just been announced, the public are being asked to vote which area the prize of £10 million will be given to. The sectors left Adam and I discussing what we felt would make the most difference to the world, rather than giving you all the details here, just go to “gizmag”, once we had gone through them all there were two that stood out to us as the ones by far the most important, feeding the world and supplying clean drinking water for everyone cheaply. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that water is the main issue, with enough water, food should also cease to be a problem. The other issues that are there to choose from all struck me as issues that would benefit those in the developed world, but do nothing for third world countries at all. Solutions for dementia, paralysis and creating new antibiotics, are all things that due to finances would never benefit the poorest as they never do. I appreciate what the organisers are trying to do, but when I saw that one of the possible goals was carbon-free flight, I was totally disappointed by whoever made up the list, we don’t have to fly, the world worked perfectly well when we couldn’t, so just ground them all. When I said the other day that having time to think was a true gift, these are the sort of situations I was talking about.
There is something about living a simple life that makes you understand just how much we have at our fingertips,, but in reality, we don’t actually need at all. The longer that the outside world has been just that, outside of my reach, the more I have found that I actually don’t miss it and don’t really want to go there, even if I could. For the first time in my life it would appear that I could actually have my wish of living somewhere remote, but being locked indoors, oddly means I am caught in having to live in a city. I am dependent on the benefits of delivery services and having a hospital not far away, things only open to those who have a city life, but as my life has been stripped back and back again, the happier I seem to have become. I honestly think that we are programmed to live this way, not in the rush around, must do and must have world that I used to be part of. It never enters my head to want to buy clothes, or shoes, or other than on a special occasion even a takeaway meal, I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a movie or wanted to do something like go ice skating or ten pin bowling. Simple small things that I used to do, but now I don’t even think about, something inside me has changed and has made me realise just how destructive living like that was.
I honestly wish I had realised just how much difference it would make to me years ago, I had doctors telling me I should stop working, I had an employer who questioned several times if I was physically and mentally up to continuing and I dug my heels in and I worked on. I now question what was I working for, yes I got paid, but I spent it and never had any more left in my bank at the end of the month than I have now. Living the simple life that is documented here throughout my blog, is more satisfying than the life I led before. There isn’t one individual part of my life that makes me happy it is the whole of it, from sleeping to writing and spending time with Adam. In total honesty the fact I have to live with pain and fatigue, well it’s a payoff and one I can live with as long as the rest of it remains as is. I remember writing a post a while back which I can’t find just now, but I said then that I didn’t know how I would be able to cope if I was cured, the whole idea of re-entering the rat race was horrific. When you have been ill for as long as I have, being cured, well it sounds like one of the scariest things that could ever happen to me. On top of that, well I quite simply wouldn’t want to give up my life that I have now. I have had such a topsy-turvy life that starting all over again, whilst trying to hold onto what I know for me is just about perfect, I believe would be impossible.
For all the hell I went through getting the right diagnosis, living with pain that no doctor would help me with until they made the diagnosis, the loss of my family and a life that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, in a strange way I am now grateful for all of it, as I honestly have never in my life met anyone who is as contented and as happy as I am, so how could I ever endanger any of it. I know I have said it many times and I make no excuse for saying it again, I just wish I could teach others to feel this way without having to go through the bad stuff as well.
Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 20/05/12 – Medication
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 