Simple Living with a Side Order of Guilt

Toward the beginning of the book Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin, the author writes about a woman who sat next to him during lunch at a conference. She stood in line at the buffet and took only an apple, a slice of bread and a piece of cheese. When he asked her, pointedly, why she had taken so little when she could have eaten as much as she wanted, she told him that, while others in the world were starving, she would eat only what was necessary.

Since this is a new blog, you don't know this about me, but I'm a guiltaholic. I feel guilty about almost everything. When I was six, I found a pencil that I knew a girl in my class had lost. Now, this was a Cabbage Patch Kids pencil, and I really really, really wanted it, so I decided to take it home with me. She had others. I didn't have any, even though I had asked my mother for a pack repeatedly. Overnight I was so guilt-ridden, I couldn't stand it. I gave the pencil to the teacher the next day, but the guilt didn't subside. I felt like an awful person for years. I would remember that damn pencil, and my whole body would shake. The way I deal with these sorts of things hasn't gotten any better over the decades, and I carry this dense sack of guilt along with me wherever I go.

I care about world hunger (I do), but I eat more than the woman he described. Quite a lot more, actually. And I eat junk food (there's a bag of sunflower seeds sitting in front of me as I type this). I snack. I have dessert, sometimes. I get myself treats at the grocery. What does that make me?

If you answered "a hypocrite," you're absolutely correct! Tell 'em what they've won, Bob!

And that's the biggest snare for me in moving toward a more simple way of living: hypocrisy. How do you truly live in accordance with your values?

I remember feeling this most acutely when I was learning to drive. I have never been a bug killer. Instead, I just catch and release (well, I leave the spiders where they are -- they do a great job of keeping other bugs at bay). When I began driving, I was amazed by how many insects hit my windshield. I had a hard time getting to the point where I could drive without crying. And yet, I drove. I didn't need to drive, necessarily, but I did it anyhow. And I added a heaping spoonful of guilt to the sack.

To live without guilt, I'd have to be a strict vegan, eat only organic, locally grown foods, support only small, local, eco-friendly businesses, not buy anything unnecessary -- ever, bicycle everywhere (despite living in the suburbs where few locally-owned stores and no farmer's markets are within cycling distance), keep a completely clean and clutter-free home, never watch television (except for, perhaps, Free Speech TV), quit my job and do something meaningful (this is a biggie), volunteer MUCH more often, etc., etc. Not that these are bad things. I'm striving toward all of them (well, maybe not the bicycling part - but if they'd get some kind of bus system for this town, it would make all the difference). But, I'm nowhere near living the life I want to live. How to cope with the guilt until I get there? Or will I ever get there? Maybe this is a striving, rather than a reaching, sort of thing....

Forgive my rambling. That story just stuck with me.