What should “classical higher education” look like in our times?

When I think of classical education, I think of Pierrepont or Dominion before college and perhaps St. John’s once there. But I want to ask, should the idea of and basic structure and goals of a classical education stay the same, while the curriculum adjusts?

This is just a quick post/question, the first of perhaps a few. My apologies of I did not frame the question exactly right. Yet, I truly appreciate any feedback any of you would be interested in offering.

Can you believe Google hired Ray Kurtzweil?

100TC is getting a fresh new look, some new features, and more to come. What will remain the same are regular (a few times a week) posts from 100TC contributors and guests about how simplicity can benefit your life. Please make sure you

• Update your RSS feed reader or updates by email
• Join the new 100TC email list
• Keep adding comments – 100TC is so much better with your voice added
• Anticipate some cool new ways to participate (e.g. #ReduceMonth coming April 1st – no joke)

Thank you for everything. The 100TC community is truly one of the coolest groups of people on earth. You are using the formative power of simplicity to make the world a better place. Keep up the good work!

Dave

Eight years ago, when my husband and I were just getting acquainted, we answered some revealing questions about ourselves. One of those was this:

What are you most passionate about?

My answer was quick and easy: simplicity.

His answer was much different – “If hooligans strapped me down and forced me to pick only one thing to be passionate about… youth work, music, computers, web design, graphics, photography, video, leading, following, teaching, learning, listening, preaching and a few others.”

I fell in love with him and that overflowing passion.

But as you can guess, this difference in the ways we approach life can sometimes clash.  And I know that we’re not alone.  It comes up often enough in comments here and on the Facebook page.  People ask how to deal with spouses that don’t want to come along for the ride on the journey toward simplicity.

Now, I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and honestly, I know that I’m blessed to have a husband that ultimately is very much on the same page as I am on many aspects of life.  In full disclosure, I will say that I would never have even called him “resistant” as I know some of your spouses are.  But we have had disagreements on what level of simplicity we should strive for.  So, I have a couple of thoughts that have been lingering in my head recently that I wanted to pass along to the readers of the 100TC blog.

The vision of 100TC is to see relationships grow through the power of simplicity.   So, the first thing that I recommend to people who want their spouse to come alongside them is to focus more on their relationships than on simplicity itself.  I haven’t always done this.  I’m embarrassed at the number of times I’ve walked out of a budget talk in a huff because I wasn’t getting my way on buying less stuff.  But ultimately, the times when I’ve kept my cool and tried to really hear where my husband’s heart was have been the times that I’ve grown to love him more.  Not necessarily because I’ve ended up agreeing with him, either.  Sometimes, we still disagree.  Sometimes, we have to come back to the topic several times before one of us realizes that the relationship – sacrificing for the other – is what’s most important here.

Another thing that I can say looking back at my own experience is that personal growth happens in many different ways at many different paces.  There are a few things that I take away from this.  First of all, I have come to realize that I can’t always know what is happening in the heads and hearts of those around me.  It’s easy to judge the actions of a person, but we don’t always know their intentions.  And we certainly can’t know everything they are mentally wrestling with as they grow.  It may be that there is more going on inside your partner’s head than you are giving him or her credit for.  Their resistance to act in a way that is 100TC-compliant doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t beginning to understand your passion for it and perhaps their own need for it.

The other thing I take from the idea of growth happening in different ways is that I realize I myself can grow in more than one way at a time.  While you might be intentionally seeking simplicity, these interactions with a spouse can also ignite possibilities for you to grow in ways you didn’t necessarily intend to.  Qualities like humility, patience, and forgiveness are all ones that can have ample opportunity to be developed as you are heading toward simplicity and hoping to influence your spouse to come along.

What other things have you seen that you can share to encourage others who are struggling with resistant spouses?

A number of Christmases ago Leanne bought a Cuisinart coffee maker for our home. I appreciate it because I like coffee.

Not too long ago I bought a Keurig for my place of employment. I appreciate it too because I like coffee.

The Cuisinart makes brewing morning coffee relatively easy. My routine is to wake in the morning and stumble downstairs to prepare the coffee. By the time I have showered and shaved it has brewed. I bring Leanne a cup in bed before heading back downstairs to pour my own cup and leave for work.

At work the Keurig makes brewing one cup of coffee tremendously easy. Yet my routine at work is less fixed. Sometimes on account of sleepiness or boredom or a desire for the warm comfort of a mug of coffee, I will brew a second morning cup. Or for the same reasons I might brew an afternoon cup of coffee.

Both the Cuisinart and Keurig are good for getting coffee made and into my vascular system efficiently.

We used to own a red kettle. It was less convenient as a tool for making coffee, yet it made coffee the way I enjoy making it: inconveniently. To be precise, the kettle did not make coffee. It merely boiled water I would pour through a plastic one-cup coffee filter rested atop a mug. That kettle was destroyed when it was mistakenly left to boil indefinitely and, when all the water steamed away, the kettle was ruined.

So now we use an ordinary pot to accomplish what the kettle used to do: boil water to make coffee the inconvenient way. The pot is less aesthetically pleasing on the stovetop than the kettle was. And that is something. Pretty furnishings are nice. But I have come to think the pot, while dull and ordinary in appearance, is actually the more beautiful. For in addition forcing me to slow down while I wait for the water to boil, the pot allows me to witness what the kettle kept secret, that is, the boiling of the water. And boiling water is simply one of the most miraculous phenomenons in this incredible world of ours. Of course the kettle whistled when the water boiled and hissed when I poured the boiling water out of the cool spout. While the whistle and hisses were amusing, neither are as impressive as looking down on the pot and watching the bubbles of a vigorous boil.

I appreciate many of the conveniences of modern life. What I do not appreciate, at least not when I am thinking straight, is that so many of the supposed conveniences of modern life require that I do not slow down. Allegedly it is more convenient to rush around from one modern efficiency to another. What is more, too often modern efficiency hides the wonders of life from me, as if wonder itself were an inconvenience and distraction. As if a plant that grows out of the ground and sprouts beans that people roast and grind and pour boiling water over to create a drink they find delicious and comforting and addictive is not an interesting matter. Really?

Often I have found obscured by modern conveniences are the real wonders of life.

Here is an exercise. Think through your favorite modern convenience. Do not fret about getting rid of it altogether. Just give it some thought. Is the convenience, in all of its efficiency, keeping you from enjoying one of life’s wonders?

Yesterday, I posted a video on facebook asking how people thought the statistics in it might change if simplicity were the norm in our society.

Of those who commented, many felt like the stats were overwhelming.  Others encouraged us to remember that we need to work together.  These are two responses that seem very relevant to the idea of living simply.  First of all, we all get frustrated at the problems around us and wonder what we can do on our own.  And the answer to that is allowing yourself the margin – in your time, your energy, and your money – to build relationships and work together with others.

But I also have a few ideas of how the stats might change as the movement toward simplicity grows.

1.  First of all, I think that some of the weight of the statistics would vanish.  The presentation of the statistics is intended to compare and to create a feeling of comparative deprivation.  I imagine that many people feel okay about their standing, based on the graph of what people thought was real.  Sure, they might feel a little bit deprived, but in general, they don’t feel too bad as their position in the graph is not too terribly far from the line (3:15 in the video).  However, suddenly, when we see the reality of the wealth, we become angry and think that we are being treated unfairly.

But has anything changed?  Only our perception.  Does it really matter for most Americans if they statistically have much less than the richest?**  Not really.  The only statistic here that is relevant in my opinion is that there are more people living below poverty than most of us realize.  And that is my next point.

2.  I think that if more people lived a simple life, they would be able to help those people who live below the poverty line a little bit more.   When you approach life with intentionality instead of with consumerism, you start to see where your wasted money and time go, and hopefully, it drives you to want to use that money and time for a deeper purpose than most of us Americans are living for.   If simplicity were the norm, more people would be going to the ghetto tutoring children after school and teaching job skills to single moms.  Some of the wealthiest Americans would still be wealthy due to investment income, but perhaps more of that money would go to develop effective schools in low-income neighborhoods as they realize that simplicity doesn’t require excessive wealth.  This would raise the lowest brackets and lower the higher brackets.

3.  Lastly, I believe that if more people lived simply, we’d see a shift in mentality leading to a shift in position.  If you notice, the narrator of this video speaks a lot about the system being flawed, but the only evidence he uses for that is that the wealth is unequally distributed.  In my personal opinion and experience, I see that the system we have in America is a human system that has flaws, yes, but is not something that traps people in poverty.   I could point to Oprah Winfrey as an advocate of America being the land of opportunity.  She has proudly sung the praises of this country more than once as she recalls her own childhood in poverty and the path of opportunities that lead to her undeniable success.   But I’m not one to just look to celebrities to mold my beliefs.

I have lived it, too.  In 2005, I was a single parent of a 2-person household, and I made $12,415 working 3 different part-time jobs.  My income was about $400 below the poverty line for that year and family size.   Never in my experience would I have described myself as poor.  Certainly, I could not have all the things that others around me had.  But I owned a home, had a retirement account, and was happy with my relationships.

Since then, I’ve gotten married and have two more children.  Our household income is up to just above the average American income, but without feeling prideful about it, I can safely say that our net worth is higher than many Americans that make much more than we do because we live on a debt-free principle and make investments.  So, you can see that they system has not imprisoned us.

So, my last point on how I think the statistics would change is that I believe that more Americans would decide not to be victims to a system, but to be proactive in their wealth and what they do with their wealth.  After that, the net worth of more middle and lower bracket Americans would rise as they make changes to how their income is used and what investments they are making.

Well, these are my thoughts.  What are yours?

**If you would like another comparative statistic to see the distribution of wealth throughout the world, check out the Global Rich List to see how you rank.

This is a guest post from Cory Verner, president of eChristian.com. An entrepreneur, mountain climber, musician, and advocate of simple living, Cory and his family are working out the details of a non-consumerist lifestyle in Southern California.

Like many of you here at 100TC we desire a simple life. One of best ways we have found to develop a habit of simplicity is to practice the art of contentment. In our overly consumptive world it can be difficult to be content. It’s easy to get caught up in the desire to consume, upgrade, replace, and look good to those around us.

Over the past several years our family has been working to create a more simple existence. We eliminated our non-mortgage debt of more than $60,000 and have been actively downsizing, scaling back, reusing, and even wearing things out. The process was cleansing and I can honestly say that we have come to better appreciate the things we have.

We still struggle to be content sometimes, though. For years we have considered moving to a larger, better located house with more space. I’m embarrassed to confess this because, really, our house is wonderful. It’s comfortable, functional, and spacious. The main problem was that we didn’t have an office or guest bedroom. We also thought it would be cool to have a music room.

These desires were fine and they do line up well with our commitment to connect as a family and with others. Still, the idea of moving made us uncomfortable. We knew our house payment would go up and moving is expensive when you consider the costs of selling a home and moving expenses.

We began to look at our house to see if it was possible to stay. Over a few months we made some tweaks to see if we could make it work. Now it does. Here’s what we did.

First, we have a three bedroom, two bath house. We decided to set up one room with twin beds and to purchase a queen for the other room so it can double as a guest bedroom. The result is that we’ve been able to comfortably host guests several times over the past few months.

We converted our living room to a music room. It took some experimenting to get this right but I think we have something now that everyone is happy with. We now spend several hours a week here hanging around playing music together (something we did very little of previously). It’s an unconventional space for a music room, but it works well for us. Many people who see it offer completely unsolicited positive feedback.

Lastly, we converted our master bedroom to a bedroom/office. Our master bedroom is pretty spacious. It is located in the back of the house and it gets very little pre-nighttime use. Having an office back there turned out to be ideal since most of the action is happening in the front of the house most of the time.

By being creative and solving our issues without moving, there were some surprising and unexpected side benefits, most notably that these new spaces drew us together and have allowed us to connect rather than separating us, as a larger home with separate spaces would have done. We accomplished all of this without spending almost any money. We purchased a bed and spent some gas money to pick up a free desk. A move would have cost tens of thousands of dollars and would have increased our house payment, something I was exceedingly glad to avoid.

Let’s run through a short two-list exercise. A couple warnings, however, before we start. First, it only works if you are completely honest. Second, when it works it will change your life and make you a person of influence. Ready?

List 1

List five people you are most inspired by. No need to be obsessive compulsive. Just get down five names of people who seriously inspire you. My list would look something like this:

1. Saint Augustine
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. C. S. Lewis
4. Kate DiCamillo
5. Wendell Berry

List 2

Now, list five people who have directly influenced your life for the better. Again, no need for perfection here. Just write down five names of people who have made your life better. My list would look something this:

1. Leanne Bruno
2. Jim Hammond
3. Mr. Harris
4. Ron Sauer
5. Tie: lots of friends like Todd, Jon, Brady, and others

If you read any self-help book or attend any inspirational conference, you will be told stories about the people on List 1. It makes sense. The people on List 1 are inspirational. The accomplishments of List 1 people are mind boggling. Personally, when I think about List 1 people it makes me want to change the world.

Yet, the people on List 2 changed me. Without them, I probably would not even care about List 1 because List 2 people made me the kind of person who gets inspired by List 1 people.

Here is how to be a person of influence: give yourself entirely over to being a List 2 person. Think about the people on your List 2 and figure out how to be just like them.

Note that this is the exact opposite advice as what you hear at inspirational conferences and read in self-help books. Motivational speakers and writers make their living encouraging potential List 2 people to think about the people on List 1 and try to figure out how to be just like them. The alleged reason is that List 1 people are the most strategic and influential and world-changing people. Therefore, if you want to me the most strategic and influential and world-changing kind of person you can be, you need to be like a List 1 person…even though your life has not really been influenced much by List 1 people, inspirational though they be.

Also, and this is just my belief on the matter, you cannot get yourself on List 1 no matter how hard you try. Notice that I did not say you cannot get on List 1. You might very well end up there. But if you do, I believe, it will not be because of your own effort. People end up on List 1 in ways that are inscrutable. The best way to end up on List 1 is to be the most amazing List 2 person possible and not get in the way of providence when you are called on to also be a List 1 kind of person.

But if you become a List 2 person, guaranteed you will be a person of influence. Guaranteed. Granted, you likely will not be remembered (on earth) much past your death. Your life, though, will have positively influenced many people whose lives would be sadder if you had not been the kind of person who ends up on their List 2.

Do not fret about making it on to List 1. Instead, be a person of influence.

We almost never know the future. We almost always know that the grass isn’t greener elsewhere. And, we usually can figure out the next right thing to do. So “live the life that unfolds before you” is good advice. Stay the course. It is the advice I am most tempted to give others most of the times.*

So can I make a confession? I have not been so good at following my own advice. I have been reluctant to live the life unfolding before me. I have been reluctant to embrace my life as the “100 Thing Challenge guy.”

It is not that I lack passion for the message of the 100TC. I can rant for quite some time about the value of practicing simplicity. Recently I have even clarified the 100TC vision: to create better relationships of all kinds through the formative power of simplicity. The relationships 100TC advocacy will focus on are: family, community, God, and nature. I am very excited about where the 100TC movement will go and the ways in which it will grow.

Making the case from my blog for rejecting excessive consumerism and embracing a more simple lifestyle comes easy to me. Being viewed by others as a public figure who makes the case for simplicity has not come easy to me. Though I do not get stage fright, I get stage self-uncertainty. I am comfortable on radio and TV shows and in front of audiences delivering a message. I am not so comfortable thinking of myself as a message deliverer. And I have not done well confronting that discomfort and maturing past it. And honestly, I have not done well attracting mentors to help guide me through it. And yet despite my incompetence, the 100TC life keeps unfolding before me. Even though I have bumbled through the past few years, media keep calling and the incredible 100TC community keeps growing.

And so I just want to publicly say I am going to do my best to go with it––live the life unfolding before me, come what may. I am going to accept that, at least until media and you super inspiring fans lose interest in the 100TC, it is my role to be the 100 Thing Challenge guy who speaks out against excessive consumerism and speaks up for simplicity.

Truly, I might never get over my surprise that so many people are interested in the 100 Thing Challenge and the message of simplicity that accompanies it. But I am going to do my best to get over letting my surprise turn into worry or doubt or inaction.

Thanks to all you who have considered the 100TC an inspiration. There’s more to come…

*I would say the exception to this rule is if you are in an abusive relationship of any kind. Then it is best to get out as fast and as safe as possible.

It’s ancient Greek wisdom that has been recapitulated time and time again:  Know Thyself.

Socrates quoted the axiom and stated it another way by saying, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

This concept is so closely related to the idea of developing a life of simplicity because even in the simplicity movement, there are different ideas about what simplicity is.  Some view simplicity as owning nothing more than what can fit in a backpack.  To others, it is organic food and homemade cleaners.  Some find simple pleasure in the calm of country living, while others enjoy the ability to walk and ride where they need to go in their city neighborhood.

But simplicity can be and is all of this.  None of us can accomplish everything that simplicity can be, particularly in those instances when two parts of it are mutually exclusive (see above re: city living/country living).

That’s a fact.  What we do with that fact is what can make or break our enjoyment of the simple life we are carving out.

We can either compare ourselves to someone who finds simplicity in a different way – thereby always finding something to which we don’t measure up – or we can appreciate the diversity of the world and the places that we fit into the scope of it.

I’m one of those people that believes there’s more to life than what we can experience with our physical senses.  And I believe that each person has gifts and abilities and purposes unique to them.

So, may I encourage you as you pursue simplicity?

Pursue it in your way, finding ideas from others, but realizing that you are a unique individual whose simplicity will look different than someone else’s.

Know yourself and you will know how simplicity should look in your life.