WHEN WE SEE what’s happening around the world today, shouldn’t it be clear to us what’s really important in life? Yet, there seems to be so much emphasis by so many on amassing more and more material wealth by whatever means, accompanied by senseless spending and extreme wastage.
A recent Nation article by Antoinette Connell entitled Not Poverty, Just Spending Sense, and a number of emails I’ve been receiving, have made me think more and more about the benefits of the simple life and common sense spending. Of course health is paramount and it’s said the best doctors in the world are: sunlight, rest, exercise, diet, self-confidence and friends, most of which come at little or no monetary cost.
You do need some money to live though, so it’s important to manage whatever you have wisely and plan for your future so you have some security in your old age. Isn’t it greed, poor money management and financial decisions which caused the present worldwide financial crisis?
Closer to home, we saw the recent news item where a Barbadian stands to lose her property because she can’t pay her mortgage. She’s reported to have purchased her land at a reasonable price and built a modest home 35 years ago. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the trouble came after she did renovations costing $400 000 which doubled the square footage of the house and included such upgrades as a gym, several jacuzzis, chandeliers, an elaborate kitchen and so on. Then she lost her business and couldn’t meet the mortgage payments.
The question is, wouldn’t she have been better off retaining the modest home, the payments for which I assume would’ve been more manageable?
There’s so much we seem to think we can’t do without, but in the grand scheme of things most of it is unimportant. Someone sent me an email recently which said: “As we grow older, and hence wiser [hopefully], we slowly realise that wearing a $300 or $30 watch, they both tell the same time . . . . Whether we carry a $300 or $30 wallet/handbag, the amount of money inside is the same; whether the house we live in is 30 or 300 square metres, the loneliness is the same; whether you fly first or economy class, if the plane goes down, you go down with it . . . .
“Your true inner happiness does not come from the material things of this world. When you have buddies and old friends, brothers and sisters, who you chat with, laugh with, talk with, sing songs with, talk about north-south-east-west or heaven and earth . . . that is true happiness!”
Family ties are important as the late Dame Olga Lopes-Seale noted in her column in 1994 – the Year Of The Family. “I believe in family ties that flourish strong and pure, that thrive in fond togetherness, that help and mend and cure. I believe in fellowship because I realise that keys to peace and happiness are found in family ties. The finest conventions ever held beneath the sun are the little family gatherings held when the busy day is done.” How many families eat together now? How many talk to each other on a regular basis?
I know we’ve progressed, but at what price? Technology is good but we need a balance. Let’s adjust to change, but hold on to unchanging principles.
Newspaper headlines like Whither My Country Barbados? and Moral Decay Is Frightening should bother us, but are we taking them seriously? Father Leslie Lett recently declared that we’re a society adrift and fast becoming a people who know the dollar price of everything and the value of nothing. If we’re to reverse that, we must start with our children and heed the advice “don’t educate your children to be rich, educate them to be happy, so when they grow up they will know the value of things, not the price”, not to mention the value of life.
In my day children learned the value of money, self-discipline, thrift, work ethic and other life skills from their parents, but if this no longer happens, then I agree with chief executive officer of Caribbean Credit Bureau Ltd Canada, Grady Clarke, when he says that sound financial habits taught at an early age at primary school would redound to the benefit of the society and the economy.
Dr Frances Chandler is a former Independent senator. Email [email protected].
