A Reasonable Life

A Reasonable Life by Ferenc Mate is an insight in to a personal point of view of how we should be living comparatively to how we are living now. This concept is greatly similar to my blog on Michelle Obama yet Mate had a different spin on how to achieve this way of life. Michelle Obama put pressure on the education system being able to aid in recovering what has been compromised. Mate puts more emphasis on changing yourself through looking at the times before us.
In the older days humans worked with nature; returning what was taken, respecting nature, ect. Today as Mate puts it is now Human vs. Nature where we tear down our forests which are essentially the air we breath, so he puts it that we would rather have nice things rather than preserve our oxygen. How it came to be where we have all became so materialistic is beyond me, I would actually prefer to have a life similar to the simplest times in history. A comparison that Mate described was when he used to go out and play baseball as an child. It was the best of times to be with friends and laugh in a rugged field that did not have distinct bases. He looks at today’s baseball games and he sees angry frustrated children being pressured from their families and coaches to win. He also sees that the players all have nice uniforms and steal bats which was unheard of in his time. This shows that all though the material things have gotten “better” the values have decreased with it showing that happiness can not be bought as we all seem to think is possible. I have been victim to this as well, I often spend too much money on things that I really don’t need yet feel it will make me happier if I have it. How sick is that?
Also in Mate’s book he goes deeply in the profound expenditure of the place we all home. It becomes an endless cycle of having a strenuous job to afford a big house in a nice neighborhood with an garage and if you really stop and think it just seems so unnecessary. I think there should be more to life then slaving away at a job to pay the bills on a gas guzzling car, a mortgage that will take a lifetime to pay off, all those kitchen gadgets that no one needs, and everything else in our materialistic world. Should there not be a more rewarding part of life rather than just the ability to pay for stuff? Not to mention that most of us have houses that are designed to keep to ourselves, a place to eat a meal alone, a place to watch TV till your brain rots, and a kitchen that has so much gizmos that you don’t need help making dinner. Mate tells of a story that in Italy all these places are combined in to one area called the Casa and even if they irritate the crap out of you, you constantly run in to your family there and your neighbors. It brings everyone together and in a lot of households togetherness is actual an issue.
The last way to return our values back to normal is gardening. By making a home garden you not only are making use out of your days you are actually providing the natural taste of tomatoes and the like. When I was younger my family had a farm and I would help and I always had fun helping out and picking the plants when they were ready. Gardening is a great tool to create joy in your life and it cuts down on your food bill. If everyone made use of their otherwise useless lawns pollution via food transportation and production would be greatly reduced. With all these pros I do not understand why it is so hard for Americans to adapt to such lifestyles. How many times will we ignore the fact that we can no longer live in a materialistic world, we have to take it in to our own hands and return to those values before the industrial revolution.

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A Reasonable Life- Ferenc Mate