How Much Stuff is 'Enough"?

I'd like to share a great article written by a good blogging friend, CountryMama. I had planned on doing a review on this book, since I quote from it often...but why bother? She did a GREAT job!

It's an interesting question...how much is enough?  

Well, as you know if you read our post about Living on A Shoestring and Lovin' It..we feel as if we do have enough. We care much more about living than money. But here's a great article on why we need to evaluate our priorities. They say Time is Money..but I say Time is for Living!

I would love to have you visit Country Mama today at 

Life and Love in the Country.

All her posts are such interesting dialogues on life!

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Here's Country Mama...

Backwards Enoughasaurus

I'm about halfway through the great book I won on Donna's giveaways at Comin' Home.

The Ultimate Cheapskate's road map to the truth was, and still is, completely different from what I thought it was going to be, but in a good way. I expected it to be another book about ways to pinch pennies and starve our souls so that we live a little less from  paycheck to paycheck.

Instead, this book is a breath of fresh air! It has nothing to do with somehow making dollars out of pennies, but instead it talks about taking a true-life assessment of what's around you and making the most of it, not because it's all you can afford but because you shouldn't have worked as hard as you have for things that you don't want. 


 

You shouldn't look around and see your hard earned cash being wasted on things you'd rather not have or could have been thriftier about. 

The author Jeff Yeager brings up the concept of the "enoughasuarus", the evil monster within that makes you constantly strive for more in your life, mostly on a material level but it covers every aspect, without really stopping to enjoy life or even evaluate where you are in your life.  

Do you have enough in your life to feel fulfilled and successful? 

Slaying the enoughasuarus means that you stop when you have enough in your life to answer that question with a resounding yes and stay there. Once you've slain it, you simply stop there and enjoy the life you have built for  yourself and stop striving to keep up with the rat-race to achieve things that you don't even want. 

 
This brings me to the evaluation of my enoughasuarus…he's too big. By that, I mean that right now we have more than what we really want in our life. Trouble is that we need to keep up this pace and even increase it for the next year or two to get to the point where we can slay our monster.

Our true enoughasuarus will be slain when we have less in our lives instead of more. 

We want fewer bills, less environmental impact and fewer obligations. We're working so hard to trade in the semi-new house on a postcard street and a schedule full of activities for lazy days on a simple farm and living what high society would likely see as the poor life. 

Our enoughasuaras is backwards--We're working to have less.... not to keep up with the rat-race. 

Don't get me wrong, we're thankful for all we have and the opportunity to reach the goals we have but we're tired of this life and all the simple pleasures it has stolen from us over time. 

I like the concept of the crazy rat-race and blind ambition as a monster you can conquer. It gives it a very personal quality and oddly enough, makes you want to work harder to slay it. (funny how the mind works)   

So how bad is your Enoughasuaras?

Are you still chasing after things you're not even sure you want or do you have enough in your life to stop running pointlessly and enjoy it?

CountryMama from Life and Love in the Country

Happy Homemaking!