In a previous post I confessed that I have only read Scott Peck’s book The road less travelled up to page 7. There he wrote the following:
Life is difficult.
This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.
Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult.
Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.
Many a day I wonder who’s to blame for this difficult life we live. And is life really meant to be so difficult?
Who’s to blame? That’s the easy part!
We are to blame. We are fully responsible because we are never satisfied with what we have. We always want more. More money, more fame and more power. When will enough be enough?
We create this crazy spinning-top life and when it spins out of control we cannot understand why it did just that.
But it’s also the simple things that add to this crazy life we lead.
Take passwords as an example. This week I had to draft a document with all the passwords I have to remember. It started with the alarm code of our house. Then this code needed a password for when the alarm went off. When the alarm went off, I need a secure password to verify to the security company that I am me. Or is it I am him? And to get into my computer to pay the alarm company I need a password for my EFT at the bank! And so the crazy spiral continues!
In stark contras to all of this, I discovered that there are people who need no passwords to live their life. People like Jon Jandai.
Life is easy says, Jon Jandai. Why do we have to make it so difficult?
After pursuing “success” in Bangkok for several years, Jon dropped out of university to return to village life. There, he went back to the life he knew as a child, working 2 months of the year to grow rice (with an additional 15 minutes a day to grow vegetables), dug a couple of fish ponds, built his own homes using earthen bricks, and gave up buying clothes. Jon contends that to be happy, we cannot just rely on money; we have to reconnect with each other.
I think he’s got the right password to life. What do you think? Let me know by posting a comment.
Click on the link below and have a look at Jon Jandai’s philosophy on life. (It takes a few seconds to play! Remember… patience!)
http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=2747
Hehe, so waar, ons maak die lewe vir ons self so ingewikkeld, en daar waar ons ophou gaan die Jones’s aan! My so lank gevat om dit agtergekom, maar vandag ry ek nog my bakkie wat die ruite met ‘n slinger afdraai.
Stem saam Jakkie! Mooi loop in die Oos-Kaap.