Amish Wisdom

In my time "out at the farm," I have grown an ever-increasing appreciation for the Amish and their way of life. This recent experience only stoked the flames of my horse-'n-buggy lovin' passion.

Dave, Pahdmae, and I were at the grocery store. As we turned down the cereal aisle, we saw a father talking to his little boy in front of the cereals. "See these," he instructed. "They put bright pictures on them and charge more, but they are actually worse for you. That's why we buy this (a boring muesli-esque mixture of oats and the such)." I proceeded to buy some double-chocolate Cookie Crisp. Pahdmae is a little young for those life lessons, and we do enjoy having a sugary cereal in the mix. My hypocrisy aside, how important was this simple grocery-store lesson? How much could our world change if we realized that the goods we are purchasing are the ones in the fancy boxes (or fancy boxes themselves) and the ones that are good for us are the ones in the plain packaging (or none at all).

I have been exploring the line between need and want lately. Here are some quick thoughts. We should try our best to purchase needs and not wants. Starting with a slow pitch. We should seriously investigate what qualifies as a need. Speeding up and taking practice swings. We should be careful to never justify our purchases that are actually wants as needs. "I need some new clothes...but, I mean...if I'm buying them, they should be nice ones...and might as well be in style." Curveball time. When our wants become needs, we are living improperly.

Enough Amish wisdom for now. They would probably be awake by now anyways...which means I should go to bed.