One of our students forwarded this Letter that I wrote back in December of last year and I thought that the timing is perfect to re-published it now. Enjoy!
I read a brilliant article in the FT Weekend by Lucia Van Der Post. She says that luxury is shifted so dramatically and that “Today you can buy cashmere in Uniqlo, champagne and smoked salmon in any supermarket. Conversely in travel, the world’s richest – Bill Gates, Greg Carr, Paul Tudor Jones – seek simple food and untrammeled wilderness to wonder at”. I believe it’s because they have gotten to a point, where they realise, simplicity, nature, and time ARE the luxury.
I consider Arran and I some of the wealthiest people I know. Certainly not in a financial sense, but in the things that we believe count. We have an abundance of love, trust, we have so much time to explore and create and be as a family, we work on things we truly believe in, and we have our deep connection to our spirituality. Making these things a priority has taken years of refining. Chiseling back the areas of our lives that didn’t align with these priorities took time and space. It’s been a very long time meditating. Every day. It’s involved curiosity, daily discipline, letting go of a lot that didn’t work anymore (even though it once seemed a fit) and introducing things that did. I know that for every part of the self-education I engage with, I learn more and more about what I want to be aligned to, and also, by default, what I don’t. We have lapsed in our judgment, and we have returned to what we know works for us with a steady passion.
I have no idea what is happening with the world right now but it feels damp with dark and shadow. There is a fragility, a thread that is thinning from what we knew, from a time of abundance and ignorance that is going to cost us dearly. For we have now had no idea what the future is going to be, but understand our consumerism is going to have a huge price to pay.
Within this, we are called to awaken to what counts. To care for our hearts and tend deeply to the matters of the soul. To create a wealth of time, of love, and kindness. To hold those that mean something deeply to us close, and to loosen the grip on those that don’t. To prioritise what truly counts to each of us. And that time is now. We are all being called into action. So take some time, have many conversations, and begin to step into your power with certainty and live a life you want to, not one you think you should live. Place first the things that count.
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse documented the Top 5 Regrets of the Dying. Regrets I will not have in this lifetime as I am addressing them now.
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so much.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Written as an invitation,
Jac x