by Lenna Gonya

Created on: February 17, 2010

Thoreau said, “The cost of a thing is the amount of . . . Life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”  

No truer words were ever spoken. If we have learned anything in the past several hundred years, it should be that everything we own and hold dear in our lives, whether it’s a perceived necessity or desired acquisition, comes with a price.

The big question is, are these things important enough in our lives that we are willing to trade off years of our existence while struggling to acquire them.

Everything we have owns us, in the respect that we must maintain it, clean it, make payments on it, and pay taxes for it.

Can we do away with this mind set, and live the simplistic life in the 21st century?
Probably not.

Thoreau believed that people should live isolated from others and in tune with nature to achieve their true happiness and fulfillment. He also believed that people should rely on themselves to survive, and be less dependent on what the world can give them.

Not that long ago, our ancestors came as pioneers. They fed themselves from their own land, and, from the bounty of nature. They built their shelters, and made their own clothes. For the most part, the outside world had no real effect on them, unless there was a war.

It is true that we absolutely can be more independent. We may not reach the level that Thoreau wanted, but we can do more for ourselves, learn to be self reliant and supply our needs from our own resources.

However, with the complexities of our world, our connection to governments and the restrictions on our lives that Thoreau never had to face, his ideal world is unlikely.

In today’s society, the Amish have probably come as close as humanly possible in a developed country to achieving some sort of independence and simplicity. But, even they have wandered into the modern day world on occasion.

In this crowded world, it is less likely that most people will have the space to live in one with nature, as Thoreau wanted.
We can, however, try to cut back on excesses, and develop a lifestyle that gets us out of the cities and back into more natural settings. We can also develop a mind set that keeps us from accumulating the extra baggage that we have become accustomed too.

As Thoreau also said, “He who owns little, is little owned.”

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