Much as I often sing the praises of wanting to sit still and do as little as possible, I also have to confess that I very seldom take the time to do so!
Around here, we often end up saying "I wanted to..." shortly followed by "...and then life happened."
This morning I actually ended up sitting (for about 45 minutes) in our living room, which is the quietest room in the house, just contemplating the world and meditating a bit.
It has been a while!
The strange part of the process was the fact that today is February 27th, and while meditating I could clearly hear a lawn mower, running in the yard across the street. Frankly, I can't remember having heard a lawn mower running in February, since moving here 20 years ago.
It has been a very mild winter around here. This is the first year I can remember that we have not had snow on the ground at least for a few hours, and more commonly we have three or four snow falls per winter. The only snow I have seen this year was up on the plateau between here and town and even that was little more than a fraction of an inch.
I'm not going to get into the whole political side of climate change and global warming here, but it definitely has been a very warm winter. I'm not sure whether that's a pattern, I'm just saying it was a warm winter. Of course it's not over yet and we still have the potential for freezes and snow until late March so I may be jinxing the whole thing by saying that it's been so warm!
With longer days and warmer weather it's also soon going to be time for yard work again, and that's what the sound of that lawn mower reminded me of. I say that, and I haven't even been outside to remove and cut up branches that have fallen as a result of winter storms. I guess I'd better get on with that, sooner rather than later!
I also found myself drifting off into thoughts about the reality that I will likely never know what "retirement" is. Given our personal financial situation — and the constant rise in the price of everything around us — we can less and less afford to be alive, and hence we can less and less afford to just stop working at any time soon.
It made me remember an article I read while sitting in a doctor's office back in the mid-1980s, in which some social commentator was suggesting that it was likely that our generation (Gen X) would go on to become the first generation to on average be worse off than our parents by retirement age.
At the time I read that, I was still filled with hope and ambition and thought it was an unnecessarily doomy prediction. Much as I hate to admit it, that is definitely holding true for us, 40 years later.
I can't help but think that the culprit in this equation was the false premise we were sold that we can somehow "have it all." It's a paradigm that encourages overconsumption and overextending ourselves in service of what, exactly? Keeping up with the Joneses? What is that useful for, anyway?
But I guess most marketing messages are about getting us to let go of funds we'd just as well hang onto.
A place to relax, in our vegetable garden
But now I must get back to the daily task of trying to make a living, or some semblance thereof!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!
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Created at 2026.02.27 22:10 PST
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