graffiti on a cyber wall

from  10 Things You Should Know About Yourself (aka: “So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish!”) series.

Is there something or someone I can’t live without?
Before I began this series of questions a few weeks ago, I had already begun addressing this issue.     I was attempting to simplify my life and relationships.
 

 It started with people in my life who caused distress and pain.  I had felt obligated to or had chosen to for various reasons (work relationships, family ties, length of the relationship, and …) to tolerate their negativity, or addictions, or gossiping ways, or biased judgments, or religious intolerance, or know it allness, or constant discontent, or constant complaining, or ….   One day I realized I didn’t have to tolerate these people in my life and I began the long and tedious process of weeding them out or fixing the relationship so it was more balanced.   There turned out to be a lot of people I could live without or could limit contact with.  Not just live without, but have a more fulfilling pleasant life.   I hurt a lot of people along the way.   I let some people down.   Sometimes I felt badly about it.  Most the time I didn’t.   This was not an easy process for me.   It isn’t my nature to not care.


Are there people I’d prefer not to live without?  Sure there are.  Primarily those people are my children and closest friends who have become family.  Losing my parents at the end of last year brought me to the realization that regardless of how I feel, I can survive without the people I thought I couldn’t live without.    I guess that lesson began years ago when my ex decided she no longer wanted to be family with the children and me.

Things are much easier to live without for me.  I need the basics to live: air, water, food, and some sort
of shelter from the elements.   Beyond that, I don’t have a lot of difficulty with possessions.  I’ve been busily reducing my possessions for the last couple of years in preparation for moving into a RV full time.




Photographs copyright jr cline 2010