Key to Contentment

After being sent home from work yesterday with the dreaded lurgie apparently hitching a ride with me I've found myself with some spare time and have decided to aim it at my blog. I've had a post whizzing around in my brain for the past few weeks so I feel now is a good time to get it down on paper, well keys at least. It's still a bit scatted throughout my head and not quite a fully formed thought so you may have to bear with me as I try and piece it together into something coherent.As you may or may not know this blog is mainly about documenting mine and my fiance's journey on the way to our dream of a B&B and small holding. When we tell people our plan their are a few general reactions we get.
It's either the 'Oh yes, we have a dream of living in a bubble under the sea' - in other words they don't believe they (or we) will ever actual achieve our dream but it's a nice thought to sustain you through the day whilst trying not to kill yourself with the stapler in your office job. This reaction makes me sad.

The next response is the 'I've always fancied a farm too...' which is along the same line as the first but is more of a response of regret in not having ever really had the guts to do what they wanted. They usually follow it up with some mumbling excuse about 'not enough time/money' I don't have as much sympathy for this one.

The final response is the best and it's either 'that's great, good luck' or 'brilliant, tell me all about it'. These people are the type that have their own dreams and can understand others following theirs.

Hang on...I've lost the point of where I'm going...wait...found it.
SO...what I'm trying to say (in a very round about way) is that the one thing people never say in response to us telling us their dream is why? Why do it? Why put so much effort into it? This is a question I've been thinking about a lot lately and to be honest the reason I've been thinking about it is because I came up with the answer first.

Over the last month or so I've been reading and seeing a lot about 'living simply'. Whether its on other blogs such as this one or on TV, in magazine, conversations with patients or just generally in my head, it seems to be coming up a lot. I'm not sure if this is the new car phenomenon (get a mini and suddenly all you see is minis) or just a shift in every one's thinking? Either way it's made me think 'that's why'. Reading about everyone else's love of living simply has reminded me of why I started this journey in the first place.
It also reminded me of an article I read in a local village paper many years ago when I lived at home. It was such a non-event moment at the time but looking back it was the catalyst for so much. The article was all about a lady who had lived in the village since she was born. Living in the same house, working the land with her parents and later her husband, living the simple life. She was about 90 something years old and the article was all about how happy she was with her long life. The reporter asked her what was the key to a long and happy life and the lady explained that today too many people spend hours and pounds constantly trying to buy and find happiness. She said that people no longer understand the value of being content. Content with what you have and enjoying it rather than constantly looking for more. She said the key to a happy life was being content with a simple life and that not many people understood that any more.

This article has stuck with me ever since and made perfect sense to me. A shiny new car and posh clothes won't make me content but eating my own veg and baking my own bread will. Spending a week out of a year in a tourist crammed hotel won't make me content but a lifetime in beautiful countryside will.

Maybe not everyone will understand this and that's fine but I feel I've found the key to my contentment and I'm looking forward to opening the door...