Simple livin’

Life is driven by the choices we make. How we make these choices is based on the years of information and experiences we have stored deep inside our heart and mind. Time has taught me that even an instance that was experienced many years ago can influence my decisions today. After all, who I am is merely a collection of experiences, in the form of thoughts, sitting in my cerebral matter, right?

As an Indicorps Fellow, we join (at least for one year) a collection of people who live by simplicity. Gandhi said: "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed". As you walk out of your room leaving the fan and light on, a studious child in the slums of Mumbai reads in earnest under dim candle-light to remove the poverty of his family situation. As you let the tap run whilst you brush your teeth or wash your dirty clothes, just think about the 1.1 billion people in the world who do not have such clean water to even drink.

To be placed in a community so different from home and to engage with them requires empathy and understanding. It requires connection and trust. Every action is preceded by a choice, which non-verbally communicates what my values are and what I stand for. Going to the local supermarket and casually bringing chocolates / fizzy drinks to an office where students would only buy those on special occasions creates one more unit of distance between us.

Whether my shirt is hand-washed or machine-washed, the people around me will merely see me in a clean shirt. The shift occurs in my thinking, or rather my feeling, to know that I cleaned this myself. To feel empowered simply by washing my own clothes was not something I expected, but it's very much present. Self reliance by doing things yourself makes you realise that you possess most of the attributes you need to live life. Many people will say that it is not in these 'material pleasures' that you find true happiness – however, it has only been when I've completely cut them all out I see the deeper joys of the not-so-material way of living.

This is certainly a year of introspection, which hopefully leads one to become closer to ones 'true self' – whatever that may be. It is my personal belief that when we are living as an expression of our true self, it is when we shall be at our best and most happy. The challenge is to allow our false self; what we think is our real state, to get out of the way, to be silenced, so that who we truly are can finally emanate into reality.

"People say that these small tools of ours will not work in this machine age. But we gave them a trial and found by experience that they do work even in this machine age. We plied the spinning wheel and the hand mill and we found that, in spite of the machine age, the wheel gave us the yarn and the hand mill the flour." – Vinoba