One summer, a woman set off on an adventure to live in a rustic house on an island off the coast of Maine. For several weeks, she used rainwater instead of plumbing and propane instead of electricity. Because the island’s store was an hour’s walk away, she made only occasional and well-planned shopping trips. “With nothing to buy and no one to impress,” she said, “I set out to discover what mattered most. What I learned is how little one needs to be content and how much of life’s bounty is free if you open your eyes and use your imagination.”1
Most of us don’t have time to take a whole summer away from our busy lives to have such an experience. But we can learn from hers, and we can feel the contentment she felt. The bounty she spoke of—a bounty that we can neither buy nor sell—is available to all.
Take a moment—sometime, somewhere—to pause. Listen to the natural sounds of life: the sweet laughter of children, the quiet whisper of leaves, the joyful chirp of a bird, the gentle pitter-patter of rain. Look at the beauty that surrounds you: the canopy of blue sky, fields of green pastures, a new day’s bright orange and yellow sunrise. All these are free, nearly every day, to those who pause to listen and look.
Perhaps we can try to unclutter our lives and slow down enough to enjoy nature’s gifts. In a demanding, complex world, it might not be easy, but truly meaningful things seldom are. Maybe we can try to remove some of the undue busyness from our lives and focus less on what we can buy and more on what we already have. A sense of contentment comes if, even for only a moment, we open our eyes to the marvelous bounty around us.
1 Alix Kates Shulman, “Finding Joy in Frugality,” Parade, May 10, 2009, 13.
Program #4165