A simple life works

Category : General advice, Philosophy 19th November 2014

Inside Yoga 122 (19/11/14)
We are often told that “less is more” and that simplicity is a path to happiness, and many people say they like to keep it simple, but how many of us actually live and breathe the simple approach to life? There is one man down in Uruguay who does exactly this even though he is the current president of the country.

José Mujica, the current president of Uruguay who has transformed tiny country (about 3.4million inhabitants) into one of the most progressive nations on Earth, steps down after five years in office next March and he was interviewed by the Observer.

The president lives in Rincón del Cerro, in a small house with just three rooms, 20 minutes outside the capital, Montevideo. Mujica refused to move to Uruguay’s luxurious presidential mansion. “I am rich here,” he says.

His presidential transport is an old Volkswagen Beetle, and the farm is owned by his wife, and he donates a large part of his presidential salary to charity.

Mujica developed his taste for simplicity while a political prisoner during the country’s period of dictatorship (the norm for South America for many years). He spent 13 years of his life languishing in the dungeons of Uruguay’s 1970s and 1980s dictatorship, undergoing torture and long stretches of solitary confinement, often in a hole in the ground. This gave him plenty of time to reflect on the futility of riches and the pointlessness of violence.

Mujica told the Observer: “I don’t believe in the torture-meter, as if enduring that gives you a patina of prestige.” He dismisses with a shrug any hatred for his torturers. “If it hadn’t been them, it would have been somebody else. It’s inevitable. There are social classes that, if you meddle with them, all hell breaks loose. But hatred doesn’t make any sense. It’s a poison. You can’t spend life trying to collect debts no one is going to pay. That is not life. Life is tomorrow.”

This president is a fascinating figure and what struck me more than anything else is his philosophical outlook, and explanation of why simplicity works for him.

“I slept for many years on a prison floor, and the nights I got a mattress, I was happy. I survived with barely nothing. So I started giving great importance to the small things in life and to the limits of things. If I dedicate myself to having a lot of things, I will have to spend a great part of my life taking care of them. And I won’t have time left to spend it on the things I like – in my case, politics.

“So living light is no sacrifice for me – it’s an affirmation of freedom, of having the greatest amount of time available for what motivates me. It’s the price of my individual freedom. I’m richer this way,” he explains.

Several years ago, when I was in Nepal (part of my travelling years) I was staying in a Tibetan monastery studying and doing retreats. On Christmas Day my room – a small brick hut on a hill out of site of the main buildings – was burgled. The thieves took everything I had – which consisted of my backpack, all my clothes, camera and everything else I travelled with (including a snorkel and mask – possibly not much use in Himalayas).

After the initial shock of the event, I began to feel liberated and free (thankfully I had my passport and money on me at the time). I was donated a few items by fellow travellers, like a warm coat and a small bag. What was interesting is that after a week or two I started to look at this small bag and began to think it was too big, that I had too much!

To read more about José Mujica and how he changed Uruguay, see the Observer article, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/16/uruguay-jose-mujica-humble-president

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