Never take more than you need. This is a good principle for living materially as well as spiritually. As far as the way that humans live in the world, all of our ecological problems are caused by taking more than we really need. Like, how much do we really need?
It’s interesting to look around. I mean, if you drive around, you just see garbage everywhere, right? Old cars, stuff that people have just kind of thrown out in their yards.
If you happen to go to a dump, you’ll really see it—garbage, garbage everywhere. Look at all the stuff that we throw away every single day, and it’s because we live in a culture of convenience. It has to be—it has to be—convenient.
It has to be easy to ship. I mean, that’s the reason why we have so much garbage and so many cardboard boxes. Really, do we need all that?
Do we really need all of our food to be instant, or can we put a little effort in to cook and actually create meals that don’t come in packages?
This is also a very important idea to keep in mind for spirituality. How much do you need? One of the big problems with, like, a new age spirituality—or the alternative spiritualities that are going around today—is that it’s so much consuming. Like, you’re just trying to bring healing constantly, bring happiness constantly.
It’s the problem with thinking that happiness is spirituality, when really, happiness is just happiness. It’s always a momentary thing. And if we’re always constantly, constantly, constantly—more happiness, more happiness, more happiness—then how much do you really need?
Can you just have an inner, calm, normal happiness, or do you always have to have an excited, ecstatic happiness?
How—how much do you really need to have?
One thing that’s just killing me lately is, um, there’s been all sorts of talk and videos and everybody’s writing about gratefulness. If we just be grateful—and man, everybody’s just taking that over the top. Like, how much gratefulness do we constantly have to have about our extreme, um, privilege?
Maybe it would be better instead to sometimes go, “Wow, I have so much privilege. I have so much available to me all the time.” How much do I really need?
How can I calm down rather than strive forward continuously? Step back. Step back into—literally—reality. When each individual person feels like they’re separate, then each individual person needs so many resources.
Do we need all that? Or could we come together?
And then you’ll find out that what the human being really wants is connection. What we really want is relationship. And relationship is always about giving. And isn’t that kind of the key to: how much do you really need? What can you give?
And giving material things has a limit. I mean, maybe if you have tons and tons of money, you can give money—but in a lot of ways, that doesn’t really solve the problem.
But what about giving care? And giving time? And giving funny stories? Sitting around and laughing with people? That’s sharing rather than taking.
How much do you really need?
How much—how much do you need to take? Or can we just relax into who we are and have enough?
And then that kind of gratefulness isn’t a gratefulness that needs to be constantly said. Like, that is a—that is a gratefulness that’s just literally part of the human heart. That in this moment, I have enough.
Right now, it’s enough happiness. That’s a different kind of happiness right there—having enough, being enough, not constantly trying to be something else.
We should do that just regularly. Relax.
In this moment, I have enough.
I think we would all be very transformed human beings by simply taking that simple stance.