Why is less more?
When I was in the richest top 1% of the world, we sent our two children to good schools (private schools), and like all our ‘richest 1%’ friends we thought we were tight for money, and we always had a credit card full of bills to be paid off.
I’m guessing this is quite normal for ‘rich’ people, for there are mortgages, car payments and endless other expenses involved in being rich.
The strange thing is, when I fell out of that privileged place and drifted into the lower category of (only) the ‘richest 10%’ in the world, I found I had more than enough and could in fact help others to give an education to their kids, those who couldn’t afford to do it themselves.
I wonder if this is the real meaning behind the idea that “less is more”!
If we pause and look at the world, it is almost impossible to discover what really matters, it is hard to determine the true values that drive humanity.
There are 10,100,500 households in Australia (a country known for hoarding toilet rolls), let’s say that each household has 5 more toilet rolls than they actually need at the present time, that’s 50,502,500 toilet rolls; and at Cole’s current offer (20 for $10) that amounts to $25,251,250.
Canada, UK, EU, USA and Japan have 5.3 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine, and yet their total populations are just over 1 billion; “the world’s wealthiest countries
could double vaccinate their entire populations and be left
with plenty to spare."
It seems to be that the more we have, the more we need, or are we still living with a primal fear of scarcity?
Sir David Attenborough addressed the recent G7 meeting in the UK and in advance of the session, he said: “The natural world today is greatly diminished. That is undeniable.......
... the decisions we make this decade - in particular the decisions made by the most economically advanced nations - are the most important in human history..”
Maybe it is not just the natural world that is diminished; surely with 25million dollars’ worth of extra toilet rolls in Australia, and a hoard of 4.3 billion Covid vaccines around the world that could save lives, we have to consider that we ourselves have been diminished.
The decisions we make day-by-day, living in the most “economically advanced nations of the world” are what really can bring about change.
And maybe we can all discover that less is more; that is, the less we hoard the more we can give.
We have four school leavers this year who are hoping to go on to study and their stories can be seen by following the link under “Activities, Reports & Updates” on the homepage.
We are looking for 28 people that can give $1.67 a day to enable these four kids to realise their dream.
We don’t have to go without toilet paper, we just need to free up some cupboard space and then we can make
a real difference in the lives of others.
