I last posted about hearing the author who wrote a book full of ideas about SIMPLE LIVING give some ideas for doing just that. I thought her ideas were more about ecology or recycling. I wanted to show respect for her efforts and public speaking, so though I made a couple comments aloud at the time, I actually felt that she was dead wrong about some of the things she thinks of as SIMPLE LIVING.
1) She suggests you take public transportation. Why bother with a car, that expense?
I've done it, and as expensive as owning a vehicle can be, with insurance, maintenance, repairs, and gas, most public transportation is not, as she calls it "relaxing." and it rarely saves you time. There are plenty of places you cannot get to easily or at all depending on it, and I think it makes you yearn for a good car. I would suggest a ride from Uber or Lyft over taking a bus.
On public transportation, which is often overcrowded, people are always jostling each other. If you're someone who can wear jeans to work, well maybe you won't mind accidently sitting on a wet carpeted seat that some kid just peed on or getting chewing gun or your jacket. It's dirty and smelly. Sometimes what you get is a good wiff of armpit when someone has to hold onto a pole. I can't concentrate or read or do anything else with the noise, the interruption, watching for stops, the transferring, or the anxiety of not knowing if a bus is actually going to show up. She suggests a cell phone ap that will tell you right where the bus is, but what's simple about continually checking it? Sometimes it's simply not safe to assume that can tune out what's going on around you, because there are pick pockets, muggers, sexual harassers, and worse. Sometimes fights break out. I've been in buses that had accidents. I've been in buses in which someone stabbed someone else and fled. (And yes I've sat on pee and ruined a suit with chewing gum.)
I think she's thinking of some suburban commuter train experience, where one might even fall back to sleep, not public transportation in the city.
2) She suggests you sign up for FreeCycle to give away things and get things you want or need without buying them. I found checking FreeCylce and thousands of messages piling up to be a real time waster and one more thing I felt I had to do.
I'm also not sure how great it is that people are showing up at your home to take away junk. Why would you want so many strangers to do just that? I wonder if they are using Google Earth to see if you live in an expensive house, broken down apartment, or how they might get in when you're not home, as part of their wanting to meet you.
I ended up cancelling my FreeCycle without ever having found anything I wanted or needed listed. I admit I never put a call out for something I might need. I prefer to give things away to charities that can sell the stuff for their own profit.
I would suggest that Craig's List is also horrible and that E-Bay is a better place to trade.
3) She suggests that you buy one of those military surplus store gizmoz that have a knife, fork and spoon to carry with you everywhere and use that when eating fast food rather than throw plastics in landfills.
OK, here is the problem with plastic spoons and plastic everything, all of which will not degrade in our lifetime. (And yes I know about the Sea of Plastic in the Pacific Ocean, which is horrific.) To truly get rid of all the plastics and packaging, we would have to go back to living off the land, hunting, fishing, butchering, gardening, canning, and you're just not going to get the population of the earth to willingly go survivalist, old Hippie Communal, or Back to the preindustrial age, if you are not going to stay home to cook home meals every day, then personally not using plastic utensils has little impact. We get to do more with our hours by having others do all the food sourcing for us, so that all we have to do is go to the market or eat fast food, or pop something into the microwave. This even becomes a feminist issue.
If time truly is MONEY, and if you really can SAVE MONEY by going simple, then simply afford to HIRE A MAID so you won't have to waste any of your time doing the usual housework, shopping, or cooking.
I know this especially because I have cooked other people dinner and realized that I lost a day of my life doing it.
C 2015 All Rights Reserved Never Married No Kids - An Intentional Community / Sister
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