Living Authentically...

Lately, I feel that I've had a real wake up call: I have to find a way to live more of my values and less of my ego.

My ego is very fragile. Sometimes it thinks that what other people think/have/do/say is of the utmost importance. My values are pretty strong and basic: I want time to make meaningful connections with family and friends. I want to take time to savour life, not live it on auto pilot. I want to make a difference in the world-make this a better journey for another being. I want to love more and worry less. I want to appreciate all I've been given and not spend much time at all wishing things were different/better/easier. I want to live simply and passionately and completely alive.

I have been bombarding myself with material in this area: Watching my "Affluenza" tape (a show about paring down and living more simply and better), finally seeing "An Inconvenient Truth", and reading voraciously any books/magazines/message boards on living better on less and leaving some resources for some of the other billions of people I share the planet with.

I think what is hardest of all, for me, is the fact that 97% of the people I know are NOT interested in simple living/questioning materialism/environmentalism, and making the world a better place. That sounds awful~I don't mean that I am better than anyone else because I am interested in those things. There are plenty of people who do WAY more than I do in one or all of the above mentioned subjects who would probably look at ME as a bad example for any of the four....

I guess what I mean really is this: I don't want to live for things anymore. I don't want my life to be about buying things/cleaning things/organizing things, working a job I don't particularly like to pay for more things, etc. I want my life to be filled up with so many simple, beautiful pleasures that I don't have to look to a store or an online shop to try to find what will make me happy. I want to make some changes, but this time slowly, deliberately and with much love and care. It's nothing I need to rush or force or hurry myself to do. I think I know deep down what is most important and what isn't and I will take the time I need to uncover those things for myself.