I wanted very little growing up. Oh sure, I experienced envy for friends and others for some of the things they had, more so for some of their experiences, especially travel experiences. But I knew at a young age that many of those things wouldn’t really make me happy. They weren’t really for me.
I had already seen how I got bored of toys quickly and endured the burden of still having to take care of them afterward. Some of my friends had considerably more money than I had, more gadgets, more toys, more trips out of town. But they weren’t happier than me. When my friends started getting cars, I knew there was no way I was going to waste my hard-earned, after-school, part-time income on a car. Not a chance.
I had my sports, my friends, music on the radio, my bicycle to get around. And I had a nice little wooden desk in my bedroom. And books. My books and the nearby forests were my places to explore the world. I couldn’t wait until my father finished reading his latest issue of National Geographic so that I could pour through the articles and learn about the world. My mother sold World Book Encyclopedia, so we had a set in the house. Great reading for a curious child.
I was happy with very little, pined for almost nothing, except to travel the world.
I’ve discovered we actually don’t change very much once we become adults. I was reminded of this when I traveled through Guatemala with some high school buddies I hadn’t seen in thirty years. They hadn’t changed a bit. One is still a socialist, intellectually arrogant, generous to a fault, unromantic, and doesn’t know or care how much money he has, but hopes some will come out of the ATM machine when he needs it. The other is still a capitalist, is a clinical professional like he always wanted to be (and still loves it), is still a fitness nut, flirts with everyone, and is also generous to a fault. They both still laugh easily. And they both occasionally drink too much.
I really thought I had changed over the years, changed a lot, in fact. But my friends said I hadn’t changed a bit since high school. I am still a dreamer, still frugal, still driven by duty (though I wish I weren’t), still a traveler, still adventurous, still read a hundred books a year, still journal regularly, and still speak out against bad behaviour. I still laugh easily. And I still occasionally drink too much.
Life is a series of experiments in how to live. Sometime in my twenties, I was convinced I was falling behind my friends. They were all getting married, some had kids, and they were either buying houses or saving to buy them. Those who had not yet found a partner seemed desperate to do so. I followed the crowd, got married and had a child, bought a house back in Canada, filled the three-thousand square feet with furniture and knickknacks, picked up more university education than I needed, and settled into a middle-class lifestyle in suburbia. I lived like this for many years as our daughter grew up. And I have no qualms about it. No regrets. We nurtured a wonderful child into adulthood. If I hadn’t had the experience, I would still want it.
It wasn’t my nature, however, to live a middle-class lifestyle and that took its toll over time. Discontent, unhappy, and no one understood why. Wasn’t my lifestyle the one that most people wanted? As they say, be careful what you wish for.
It took almost thirty years to find my way back to myself. To my small space, my generally frugal lifestyle, my solo travel and hiking adventures, to my books, my writing, my solitude. To my contentment. I haven’t really changed since high school, it seems. I was happy with very little then. And I’m happy with very little now.
When you grow up in paradise, sometimes you have to live somewhere else before you realize you had grown up in paradise. And sometimes you have to live differently to know how contented you had always been.