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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

I am currently spending my last winter here in Phoenix. In the spring,  
Chris will quit her job--if her job has not quit her first--and we  
will transport every last cup and nail to Heartwood. Right now, at  
this time of transition, expectancy and pause, I have time on my hands  
and I am musing over what has been, what will be, and how things came  
to be as they are.

It seems to me that the keys to a happy life are finding one's path,  
being true to oneself, developing a general and flexible plan, then  
finding and fitting the pieces that will contribute to the plan. Then  
sustained focus and persistence, the tried and true paradigm for  
success.

Something increasingly important, I think, is learning to eschew  
extraneous chatter: the so-called news that gushes forth from  
television sets each night, the news roundups and round tables and  
interviews and inquisitions cast upon us ad infinitum and ad nauseam.  
With the Internet, unlimited offerings of every level of information.  
With blogs, universal voices, where each sovereign soul may share  
their thoughts with the world. The primary distraction is the  
mainstream media, trolling and chumming, those with the connection  
going for the bait. Certainly the action can be entertaining, even  
instructive, but it can also be a huge waste of time and a great  
distraction from one's focus. The greater society will always have  
roller-coaster concerns. At issue is the ability to make those  
concerns largely irrelevant to one's own life.

Media distraction has been a contributing factor to my slow journey to  
the permanent homestead. Too many interests, too many side journeys.  
Too easily diverted from the main path.

As she was leaving for her job this morning Chris and I had a brief  
exchange. She mentioned that she had encouraged son Craig to buy  
Christmas presents for himself and Lise using the credit card we left  
with him to secure the chosen Christmas gift for grandson Colin which  
we were unable to finalize while we were up there in Toronto. I said  
if we do that then we must also buy for daughters Heather and Tiffany  
Tif's husband, Dave, and I don't think that makes sense. Grandkids,  
yes, absolutely. But all our children will this next year make more  
money than we and if they want for anything they will get it for  
themselves.

Yet, at Heartwood, on the homestead, we will live better than they.  
And it came to me and I said, the reason is not that we will live the  
pure homestead life and subsist on only homegrown food, cook and warm  
ourselves only with home-produced fuel nor because our pleasures and  
entertainment are very low-cost. It will not be because we deprive  
ourselves. It will because there is no mortgage or rent payment and no  
car payments and very low taxes. It will be because the plan has  
finally come together.

Learn what conditions make you most happy and make a plan to secure  
those things. Find land. Pay for your land with city jobs if you must.  
But tools. Learn skills. Follow your passions.

It is ironic that in the land of plenty, the country seen as the most  
advanced the world has ever known, that so many people are so upset,  
so angry, so disillusioned--that their lives are so precarious. We  
have been for too long looking to others to show us what is important  
and how to get it. That ability is within each of us. We have only to  
look inward and to be true to ourselves.