Living a Rat Race

It was Lily Tomlin who said “the problem with being in a rat race is that even if you win you are still a rat.”  Is she right? 

We so often live our lives as if we are on a treadmill spinning faster and faster out of control.  We are never quite sure why we are spinning so fast, never very clear where we are trying to go and yet spin we do, faster and faster as if by just going fast enough we may be able to forget about our troubles.  We can avoid the power of the present moment by spinning very fast on the treadmill and trying to reach something imaginary in the future.  All we are doing is going mindlessly round and round and round.

Let me tell you a story that some of you may have heard or read before.  It is a story about an American businessman who goes on a holiday in Mexico and when he gets there he meets a local Mexico fisherman with his very small boat.  On his boat are two very impressive-looking yellow fin tuna.   The American businessman comes up to him and says “I’m very impressed with your tuna, how long did it take to catch them?”  He said, “really not long at all – just an hour.”  The American businessman said “what do you do with the rest of your time?”  He said “well I sleep in, I play with my kids, I siesta in the afternoon, fish a little, and then in the evenings I spend time with my amigos in the village playing guitar and sipping wine.”   The American businessman is a little surprised by this and says “if you spent longer on the water you would catch more fish.   The Mexican fisherman said “why would I do that?  These two fish are all we need for our family.”  

The American businessman said “well I have an MBA and I think I can help you.”  If you spend longer out in the water, you catch more fish and when you catch more fish you make more money, you can put more boats out on the water and eventually you’ll make so much money that you can open up your own cannery.  The Mexican said “how long is this going to take?”  The American said “you’ll be working very hard day in and day out but just for a certain number of years.”  The Mexican asked “what will happen then?”  The American said “well after about fifteen years you’ll be doing so well that you’ll move to New York City and you’ll put your company on the public market and make millions of dollars.  The Mexican said “well how long will that take it?”   He said “probably 15-20 years.”   The Mexican said “what then?”  He said “well at that point you’ll be so wealthy that you’ll be free to move to some coastal village, sleep in late, play with your kids, do a little fishing, siesta in the afternoon, and then in the evenings you’ll be in the village to play a little guitar and sip wines with your amigos.”

The absurdity of that situation is exactly the culture that we have created in the west.  This is the rat’s treadmill that we are living on – many of us.  The absurdity seems to elude us because we are spinning so fast that we don’t stop to think about why we are spinning so fast and where it is that we think we might end up.

A Planetary Rat Race

We don’t even stop to think about it.  The reality is that right now we are involved in a planetary rat race, a planetary rat race where we believe that economic growth will solve all our problems.  We believe that if we spin this machine called the economy fast enough around and around, again and again, that we can solve all our problems.   But the reality is the faster the economic growth most likely the steeper the decline into oblivion for the human race. 

The faster our economic growth takes place many people would say the steeper our decline into what many believe will be another Stone Age.   We were so excited by industrialization.  We thought that it held all the keys to our future.   It has been a wonderful thing and yet we are spinning so fast that we fail to stop and realize that we may well be hitting on a very steep, slippery slope back into a Stone Age. 

This morning we look at the issue of voluntary simplicity.   I want to break that phrase into the two words that capture its essence. Voluntary indicates that we live with intention.  Simplicity indicates that we come back to that which is essential.   We come back to our core as individuals, as groups, as nations, as the planet.  We come to our essence, what matters the most.

To use Christian language we could say that we seek first the kingdom of God.  We understand what life consists of.  We understand that life does not consist of our great plans for the future.  Life does not consist of how fast we can spin on a treadmill.  Life does not consist of economic growth.   We come back with our voluntary simplicity intentionally to find what matters most to us. 

Getting Head of Ourselves

The problem with the way that many of us live our lives is that we are always trying to get ahead of ourselves.    Our 6-year old son has a saying he pulls it out on us often at home, “don’t get ahead of yourself.”  Isn’t that wise for a 6-year old?

That’s the way we live our lives.   We think that if we can just get over here when the kids are a bit older.  If we can just get over here when we have a little more money.  If we can just get this new job.   If we can just move to this new place, then life will be fulfilling. 

So we take an attitude of survival to the present and we just wait for this better time to be in the future.  The problem with living like that is that the pattern gets so ensconced in who we are that over the years we lose the ability to live in the present.  We lose the ability to appreciate what is right before us so that even if our plan plays out and somewhere over here we get somewhere, we no longer have the ability to enjoy it.  That’s the absurdity of our western treadmill.

We forget how to enjoy life.  So we wonder what the point of wearing ourselves out on that treadmill was.   Maybe we are afraid of the present.  Maybe we are afraid of what we can gain from this very moment.  

Dream or Reality- Need or Desire?

One of the problems with the way we live our life is that we lose the distinction between need and desire.  We lose the ability to distinguish between them and so we live our life in this constant flurry of seeking. 

The media is part of the problem. We are hit with a barrage of media advertising images which tell us that if we just acquire this then we will be satisfied.  If we just acquire that then we will find fulfillment as human beings. 

The problem with living this way is that along the way the earth gets plundered.  Our own lives get plundered.  The essence of who we are is taken away because we are missing the very things that are already there present for us. 

I heard a story about a Chinese Taoist master who had a dream.  It was a beautiful dream.   In this dream he was a butterfly.  In his dream he’s fluttering around without a care in the world, without any sense of being a human being, he’s just a butterfly.  At some point he wakes up from the dream, he lies there thinking and the question that comes to his mind is this – Was I then a human being dreaming that I was a butterfly or am I now a butterfly dreaming that I’m a human being. 

What a beautiful question.   In our lives we lose the distinction.  We don’t know what is real, what is a dream, what is an illusion, what is our need, and what is our desire because this rat race that we live forces us to lose the distinction.  So we live our lives confused. 

What is it going to mean for us to live a life of voluntary simplicity?  What is it going to mean for us to seek first the kingdom of God?  What is it going to mean for us to know what life consists of at its essence?  What is it going to mean for this community to live a life of voluntary simplicity?

 

 

The World’s Largest Garage Sale

We have an opportunity to explore that on June 10th.  On June 10th we are going to hold the world’s largest garage sale.   I’m confident about that because the three people coordinating this event are exactly the three people you’d want to put on the world’s largest garage sale.  Read your insert when you go home, have a think about your own commitment to this church’s garage sale on June 10th.  Go through your own possessions at home, do your own stock take, consider what is essential for you and what you may be prepared to give to the garage sale.  It can be an exercise in voluntary simplicity and along the way we can raise funds for Christ Community Church.   We know that economic growth is never separate from the inner journey.

The financial well being of this church is not separate from the non-material well being of this community.  So consider your involvement in the world’s largest garage sale on June 10th as an act of voluntary simplicity.  

Voluntary Simplicity as a Social Issue

Voluntary simplicity is not just a personal issue. It is very much a social issue as well.  It is very much an issue for us as residents in this country as this is one of the most developed countries in the world and is also one of the countries which consumes more than any other country.

Maybe you could say that the rat race that we are in is moving more quickly, more chaotically than many other nations.  So when I hear that on average an American consumes their own body weight every day in earth’s resources.  When I understand that the population of the planet is 6.5 billion and that if every one on the planet ate at the same rate that Americans eat only 2.5 billion of those people would be fed.   Less than half of the world’s population could be sustained by the earth currently if every one lived the way American’s live. 

This is very much a social issue.  What do we do about that?  Apart from getting our own lives in order and taking our own stock take, how do we get to the core of this social problem?   Some people would say that it is a problem with capitalism.   They would say that the problem occurs when economic growth drives society. Others would critique this perspective and say that it is like watermelon environmentalism.  Have you heard this analogy?   The environmental watermelon is green on the outside and red to the core, which means that the real concern for some of these people may be anti-capitalism rather than environmental concern.    

There was a book written in 2002 by Joel Kovel – just the title gives you the sense of where he is heading.  The title of the book is “The End of Capitalism or the End of the World”.   That is certainly one valid perspective, that capitalism is to blame, that this insatiable desire for more wealth at the expense of anything else is to blame for the plundering of the earth and for the unhappiness we feel deep within us. 

Natural Capitalism

There is another perspective that is a little more nuanced than capitalism and that is called natural capitalism.  Philosophically, natural capitalism grows out of the notion that greed comes out of a fear of scarcity.  If greed grows out of scarcity what we need to do is live in abundance.  So natural capitalists would say that if one of earth’s resources is depleted we need to find another which is given in abundance and take that.  But this view could be critiqued as it is only a matter of time until all of earth’s resources are depleted if we keep living with this attitude.  

So natural capitalists would have a strong principle of giving back to the environment a percentage of a company’s profits.

Various strategies could be used according to this natural capitalist perspective.  That is another valid perspective to hold.  Some would critique it and say it is utopian, that it will never happen as long as economic growth is the incentive.  That is the option people will take.  That is the option that companies will take so it doesn’t matter what percentage of their profits go back they will always be driven by economic gain. 

So it’s a complex issue.  What do you think?

How do you find a balance between those perspectives? 

What is your social position on capitalism, on natural capitalism and ecology?

These are important questions to think about.  

Let me give you two examples of companies battling with these questions.  The first is Ford.   Ford at a certain point in the 1990s began to develop technologies so that their SUVs would have less harmful emissions.  These were seen as a very positive step forward and maybe even a model for other auto companies.  But at a certain point someone from Ford came out and said “this is going to be great for Ford because if we can make these cars cheaper and if they are more popular because they are green-friendly then more people will buy them.”   So the critique comes that while they may be emitting less harmful chemicals there are also more of them on the road so it really doesn’t solve the problem.  So what is Ford to do?  Are they to take all SUVs off the road?  It might be worth putting that on the table.   It’s time for radical solution oriented conversations to take place because time is short.

Another interesting example is Stonyfield Farms, the dairy producer?   Stonyfield has been a very eco-responsible company over the last years.  Ten percent of their profits have gone back into restoring or conserving earth’s resources.  Ten percent is impressive.  They’ve had a recycling program where the plastic cups that the yogurt comes in have been recycled and used as toothpaste holders.  It’s been a creative, responsible and efficient company.   But then they were bought by Danone, a multi-national corporation and the pressure came to bear.

It is still out there as a possibility – the combination of Stonyfield Farms and Danone could well model the way for other multi-national corporations to balance economic growth and environmental sensibility.   It may do that and yet the pressure is on all the time.  As long as there is a premium on organic products the pressure will be on Stonyfield Farms to not be 100% organic.  The pressure for economic growth will always be there.   That is just to take two companies.  There are so many other companies which we could consider.

Gross National Happiness

America is one of the most developed countries in the world.   The kingdom of Bhutan is one of the least developed countries in the world.  So they exist as two polar opposites in terms of development.  The kingdom of Bhutan, as it emerges and develops,has four pillars.  The first pillar is equitable and sustainable economic growth.  The second is respect for local culture.  The third is conserving the environment and the fourth is good governance.  Four pillars for this newly-developing country.  So they have an index.  They call it the gross national happiness index.   They include in the index such things as volunteer hours, and unpaid household work.  Nature’s resources are factored in to the gross national happiness of the country.

I don’t expect for a second that what happens in America can be modeled after a very small place like Bhutan except we can learn some things from them – can’t we?  We can learn from this small kingdom.   I have to stop myself from saying seek first the kingdom of Bhutan but we can learn from them.  What does it mean for us as individuals, what does it mean for us as a community, what does it mean for this nation, this highly-developed, fast growing nation?  What does it mean for us to develop a gross national happiness index?  How do we factor in our volunteer, our non-material engagements with people and with nature? 

How do we factor that into the whole situation?  The whole of our life? 

So I want to leave you with two very brief questions inspired by the kingdom of Bhutan.

GPH – gross personal happiness.  What does that mean for you?  How will you balance getting ahead financially with being fulfilled non-materially? 

To the community – GCH – gross community happiness.  What does it mean for this community to have an equitable, sustainable, and efficient economic growth and yet at the same time remain true to what is essential?

What is our non-material core?  The energy that we give to each other.  The social justice activism that we are involved in.  All these intangibles.  All these non-materials.  How do we measure them?  How do we measure the happiness of this community? 

Voluntary simplicity- the intention to live our essential values.