The Good Life

'The Good Life'- as a TV show I loved it, as an idea I adored it and I still do. Being self-sufficient and self-reliant. I didn't know however, that the original television show was inspired by a true life story which began in 1932 in New York City in the middle of the Great Depression. In this year, Scott and Helen Nearing abandoned their city life for the green mountains of Vermont. They were socialists and pacifists and vegetarians. They were also inventive visionaries detirmined to create a completely self-suffient lifesyle that was solely dependant on their wits, hard work and perseverence.
The Nearings went in search of the good life; "simplicity, freedom from anxiety...an opportunity to be useful and live harmoniously."Two decades later they had succeeded and wrote a homesteading handbook entitled: 'Living the Good Life:How to live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World'. This book barely caused a ripple when it was published in 1954; those were the affluent post-war years when a television in every living room, a BBQ in every back yard and a station-wagon in every driveway was considered the good life. But in 1970 when the book was published as a paperback, it became a best-seller and the bible of alienated barefoot baby-boomers in search of flower power, peace, love and communal nirvana. The Nearings grueling saga, which included wresting utopia from the earth twice ( they moved to Maine in their later life as the neighbouring property to theirs was to become a ski resort) , is mythological in scope. they built a stone house by hand, they drank only water, juices and herbal teas and consumed little more than raw fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds "that have finished their life cycle" and copious amounts of pop-corn. There was no coffee, tea, salt, sugar, dairy products or eggs and naturally they did not smoke or drink. Honey was only used occasionally because it "exploited the bees"and maple syrup which they tapped and sold for cash or bartered, was swallowed with a smidgeon of guilt because it "sucked the life-blood of the mighty maple trees."
This probably explains why scott lived to be 100 and helen was still alive in her 90's when I read this article. Perhaps the secrets of the good life are revealed in the Nearings suggestions for living life less stressfully, which I have put down at the end of this piece.
I know that a simpler life is waiting for me, and every day I get a little bit closer to disentangling myself from this very complicated modern life that we get caught up in. Do you also feel strangled by your obligations and responsibilities? Whe you focus on your life properly, you can make a snip here, a chop there and even a whopping hack over thar. It's your life. Make it look more like the life you want to be leading.
ARTICLE ON THE GOOD LIFE FROM 'SIMPLE ABUNDANCE'BY SARAH BAN BREATHNACH

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THE GOOD LIFE

DO THE BEST YOU CAN WHATEVER ARISES

BE AT PEACE WITH YOURSELF

FIND A JOB YOU ENJOY

LIVE IN SIMPLE CONDITIONS; HOUSING, FOOD, CLOTHING- GET RID OF CLUTTER

CONTACT NATURE EVERY DAY; FEEL THE EARTH UNDER YOUR FEET

TAKE PHYSICAL EXERCISE THROUGH HARD WORK; THROUGH GARDENING OR WALKING

DON'T WORRY; LIVE ONE DAY AT A TIME

SHARE SOMETHING EVERY DAY WITH SOMEONE ELSE; IF YOU LIVE ALONE, WRITE TO SOMEONE; GIVE SOMETHING AWAY; HELP SOMEONE SOMEHOW

TAKE TIME TO WONDER AT LIFE AND THE WORLD; SEE HUMOUR IN LIFE WHEREVER YOU CAN

OBSERVE THE ONE LIFE IN ALL THINGS

BE KIND TO THE CREATURES