02/05/2026
‼️ON MY SOAPBOX NOW‼️
I urge you and I plead with you to live an authentic, genuine, deeply real life. Please don't trade the authentic for some quick, easy, cheap, fake reality.
You know that saying, "you don't know what you've got until it's gone"? I feel that all too deeply with how much of society is today. We want convenient. We want right here right now. We want perfection. We want more and more and more. But at what cost?
Farm land and countryside going away. People trading real friendships and relationships for strictly online ones. Making AI art and literature instead of going to the artists and authors. Super-filtered, airbrushed- looking photos of ourselves and our children. Perfectly manicured and sprayed yards to "keep up with the Jones's". Fast "food" for our fast lifestyles instead of slowing down and taking the time to nourish our bodies and minds. Forgetting the ways of old.
This is not a jab at anyone. This is a reminder of the things that are worth it and that are beautiful in life. Call me a grandma or old-fashioned (I know I am), but I think we would have a lot less issues in our society today if we spent more time sitting on front porches again, helping our neighbors, being outside, cultivating something beautiful with our yards, our words, our hands, our time. Working at our jobs with all our hearts and doing our very best and whatever we're doing! These simple things from simpler times are becoming lost arts, and at a great price.
Let's use our God-given senses and talents to better this world and live a life that is beautiful and imperfect and worth it for ourselves and the future generations.
- pick some flowers
- get dirt on your hands
- make delicious coffee in your kitchen
- write a poem
- mail someone a letter
- hold hands
- tell someone you love them
- grow some food in your yard
- sit on the porch
- read a book (feel it, smell it, look at it)
- sew something
- bake a pie
- build something
- restore something
- paint a picture (or have an artist paint one for you)
- go for a walk
- open your windows
- feel the wind on your face
And much much more. I want my life and my children's lives to be deep and rich with the things that will last. The things that really matter. Authenticity. Wholesomeness. Love.
What are some other things I could add to the list? What old-school things should we keep alive? What are some things that you love to do?