Here is a nice little parable of wisdom for those who think that having a huge amount of possessions, being wealthy, having high position and owning many businesses equates to one enjoying life to the full and attaining happiness.

Heed the lesson of the following story well…

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Despite Warren Buffett being the second richest man in the world, he seems to possess the wise virtues of simplicity and frugality, something which is very rare in these days of materialism and complex living.

As the following reveals:

A Short Take on Warren Buffett’s wisdom that we can all learn from, no matter how rich or poor…

There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:

1) He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!

2) He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.

3) He still lives in the same small 3 bedroom house in mid-town Omaha, that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence.

4) He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him. Read more…

Lovely story this from off the BBC News website…

Canadian couple give away millions in lottery winnings

A Canadian couple who won $10.9m (£6.7m) in lottery winnings in July say they have given away $10.2m of the prize to groups in their community.

Allen and Violet Large said they were plain country folks who needed no more than “what we’ve got”.

The two said they had donated about 98% of the cash after helping their family.

The elderly pair gave the money to churches, fire departments, cemeteries, the Red Cross and hospitals, where Ms Large has undergone cancer treatment.

“We haven’t bought one thing. That’s because there is nothing that we need,” Mr Large, 75, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Mr Large, a retired welder from Canada’s Nova Scotia province, added that he and his wife were quite content with their 147-year-old home and everything else they already owned.

“You can’t buy happiness,” he said.

Who says there are no contented and simple living human beings in today’s world which is mostly pervaded with superficiality and materialism?

I’m just wondering, would you have done the same?

In an earlier post entitled ‘The Simple Way of Living Towards Peace of Mind’, I shared my own thoughts on living with simplicity, something which walks hand in hand with contentedness on a merry journey towards peace of mind.

So let us call up a wise Chinese Sage of ancient times to start this lesson with a contentment quote or two,

“Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”

~ Lao Tzu

We are forever discontented in mind because of the need to complicate our lives with striving for external pleasures and vanities.  We are like spoilt children who are given a large amount of toys to play with – we then eventually become bored with them, disposing of them one at a time until we become restless, and then want a particular toy another child has so to temporarily fill the unhappy void of discontentment.

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Why is it so difficult to live simply?  Wouldn’t it save us a lot of time and effort if we took the simple course of action rather than choosing a more complex one?

What does living simply mean?  Well to begin with, one must have the clarity of mind to live simply.  Life can become more difficult than it already is once we start to complicate matters by accumulating convoluted knowledge which can obscure clarity and make us disorganised.

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

~ Confucius

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Life can be hectic and stressful with all it’s modern-day trappings, and we don’t help the situation by us complicating matters further, so…

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your surroundings?
Do you ever have too many demands on your time and attention?
It may be time for you to Embrace Simplicity!