Struggle is not a bad word
Why Garden when you can just buy food? Why burn firewood when you could just have oil delivered? Why do I further challenge myself to get by on less cords, obsessively calculating and keeping track and delighting when I reach April cozy and warm?
Why make my kid earn his gaming time with thirty minutes of hauling wood per one hour of gaming? How are the eyerolls and complaints worth it? Why do any of it? The answer is, I cling to the notion that when I am all tied up with problems in the world, things I cannot control, that I can step outside where nature is in charge but I am allowed some bit of control over my own comfort. If I chop kindling and haul firewood, my family will be cozy and warm. A simple, beautiful equation. Finally something that makes sense today.
There is something in the chore, the bite of freezing cold and the struggle through the snow that makes me think the challenge is worth it. Muscles straining, lungs stinging, slipping and sliding, having to focus hard just to stay upright. I do it because simple makes me happy. Panting and working hard equals comfort and I have given my family something simple. I forget that I am happiest in nature because nature is beautiful in its struggle and I am part of it no different in that moment than every other animal in the forest trying to get through winter.
I would do well to remember this when I get back inside and swept up in problems and I guess I keep my life full of chores in order to force me to deal with simple needs and simple solutions. Today for the first time my kid smiled when I asked him to help with wood so maybe I can pass the lesson on to him and one day he will find his lifestyle with some inexplicable chore he doesn't have to do but finds he needs to do nonetheless, and maybe just maybe, it will make him have the nerve to dream up solutions in a complicated world.
Why make my kid earn his gaming time with thirty minutes of hauling wood per one hour of gaming? How are the eyerolls and complaints worth it? Why do any of it? The answer is, I cling to the notion that when I am all tied up with problems in the world, things I cannot control, that I can step outside where nature is in charge but I am allowed some bit of control over my own comfort. If I chop kindling and haul firewood, my family will be cozy and warm. A simple, beautiful equation. Finally something that makes sense today.
There is something in the chore, the bite of freezing cold and the struggle through the snow that makes me think the challenge is worth it. Muscles straining, lungs stinging, slipping and sliding, having to focus hard just to stay upright. I do it because simple makes me happy. Panting and working hard equals comfort and I have given my family something simple. I forget that I am happiest in nature because nature is beautiful in its struggle and I am part of it no different in that moment than every other animal in the forest trying to get through winter.
I would do well to remember this when I get back inside and swept up in problems and I guess I keep my life full of chores in order to force me to deal with simple needs and simple solutions. Today for the first time my kid smiled when I asked him to help with wood so maybe I can pass the lesson on to him and one day he will find his lifestyle with some inexplicable chore he doesn't have to do but finds he needs to do nonetheless, and maybe just maybe, it will make him have the nerve to dream up solutions in a complicated world.
Kinda like maintaining your own motorcycle.
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