There is nothing quite like starting something new. The blank slate, the endless possibilities that go along with taking that first step. It can be exciting, exhilarating, life-affirming and can bring us to the highest of high places. It can also be a curse. It can become a compulsive pattern that endlessly repeats. Like a drug that once taken grabs a hold of us and never lets go. An addiction that can’t be beaten no matter how hard we try because the high is unlike any other we experience.
This craving is so strong that some of us never really settle down. Oh sure, we take root somewhere for a while. We set up housekeeping, put the kids in school, find the closest Starbucks and learn the driving shortcuts to our workplace. After a while we’re restless again. We buy a new house (a bigger one of course), take a new job, begin a new hobby or exercise routine. We go on searching for that next high, the new beginning that will bring us to our sought after euphoria. Many of us never realize (until it’s too late) that we’ve spent our whole lives searching.
I know this from experience. I’ve spent much of my life this way.
This journal is visible proof of my addiction to the new. We (Cecilia and Terry) begin this project with the same hope, energy and enthusiasm that we apply to all of our new projects. We’re excited to be able to write this and to share it with you. But why another blog? We already have four other blogs to keep us busy, each successful, each with their own content and schedules, bringing us 5,000 to 10,000 readers each month.
So why start another?
Because this project is different. Because we sincerely believe that as individuals and as a society we are at the beginning of a change so huge and yet so fundamental that in a few years there will be little left to remind us of the “old” world. The change is already here for those who are watching and listening to what their intuition is telling them.
The old models are dying. An economic and social model built on the premise of endless consumption has been shown unable to sustain itself. The cracks are everywhere. Economic, political, social and moral structures are in such disarray they are beyond repair.
Many of us sense it. Some of you have known this for a long time. Maybe you’ve even tried to explain it to those around you, but were unable. Perhaps you were labelled as a dreamer, or worse a lunatic, for trying to point out where the system is failing us. Perhaps you’ve given up hope and resigned yourself, as Willie Loman, to a “life of quiet desperation” - knowing that all is not well but unable or unwilling to do something about it…
This blog isn’t about what is wrong with our country or what ails the world. We’re not going to rant about who’s to blame or when it all started falling apart.
This blog is about taking action at a time when taking action is not only essential, it’s vital. As I eluded to at the opening, this blog is about beginnings.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. This blog is primarily about building a house. It’s our house - but it can be your house too. We hope that you can learn from both our mistakes and our sucessess. We want to take you step by step through our own process so that you can make it your process. We hope that you will use this as an inspiration to action; as a call to taking control over the things in our lives that we can take control over:
- Where we live
- How we live
- How we feed ourselves
- How we spend our waking hours
- How we live with nature
- How we help others to do the same
You see, for us this is the culmination of a life of searching, a realization of that “thing” we’ve been seeking: self-reliance, simplification and harmonic living. We hope that you’ll join us on our discovery and most of all hope that you, too can “start something new” in your own life.
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