Frugal Living Today

The sheer brilliance that is these words - taken from the Declaration of Independence - has been on my mind quite a bit lately.  As a nation we have already failed miserably when it comes to the earlier part about all men being created equal but thankfully there are steps that have been put in place over the decades that bring such lofty ideas into the realm of possibility.

The part that I think about on a near-daily basis is that last portion about our certain unalienable rights.  I don’t think that people really know what they are reading when they see those words or as seems to be the case all too often, they just don’t want to understand because understanding takes too much effort and dare I say it… responsibility.

Those certain rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  The pursuit.  You don’t have a certain unalienable right to be happy, you only have the right to pursue your own happiness.  In other words (and forgive my bluntness), when it comes to you being happy, no one owes you a damned thing.  It is all - 100% - up to you whether you are happy or not.

If the tenets of frugal living and following frugal ideas makes you happy then you should do it with abandon and let no one take that joy away from you.  If frugality is tedious and you are doing it only because you feel you have to, it is time to find the joy in it or find another way of living your life.

I don’t think that frugal ways are for everyone but in my case I have the money to not live a frugal lifestyle and I do so anyway.  Why?  Because I like it - it is a part of my pursuit of happiness.   The concept of simplicity and of living on less whether I have to or not means that I have a luxury my grandparents did not have - the choice.

They labored in their gardens and in their kitchens to put food on the table because there was no other option.   What do I do?  I write a few articles and teach people how to make the most of their money.  I grow a few vegetables because mine taste better, because they make me happy and because they save me money.

I don’t feel entitled to a damned thing if I am being completely up front.  I don’t think there is anyone on this planet who owes me.  I am here for as long as I am here and I will work for as long as I can work.  I think what has hurt our society more than nearly anything else is the Entitlement Attitude that causes some people to give up their pursuit of happiness in favor of being miserable because they feel entitled to more than they have.

Guess what, folks?  You’re entitled to a few certain unalienable rights.  That’s it.

You can do what you want with yours; I’ll be pursuing my happiness.