Faith is at the core of a Minimalist Mind lifestyle and living the present moment optimally requires us to have real faith.
In February 2015 my wife Elzaane and I embarked on our yearly vacation. Our boys were 1 and 2 at the time. We toured the West Coast of South Africa, having made no reservations and without any formal plan except to sleep at a different place every other night. We got in the car and drove and when we felt we had reached a place worth spending time we unpacked. Looking back, we were very naïve to do this with two babies in the car as packing and unpacking the car was a daunting task, but this week of vacation turned out to be very special indeed. We were living in the moment with no real certainty and it was brilliant! One experience in particular stood out. It was Sunday afternoon and we had just arrived in Strandfontein which was a destination we had heard about and both of us wanted to spend time at. After several hours of searching and phoning every guest house all to no avail we realised we would have to move on. So we continued on the R362 to Doringbaai a place we had never heard of. It was now about an hour before sunset and we were anxious as we knew that spending the night in the car would be less than ideal. We stopped at the first guest house we saw and knocked on the door. We were in luck there was one room available what a relief. The kind owner realizing that we would have to eat offered to open his shop which was obviously closed on Sunday afternoon and he recommended fresh yellow tail and crayfish and told us exactly how to prepare it on the braai. That up to this day remains the best meal I have ever had, for a moment as we were sitting eating, night having fallen, sea breeze blowing gently, children safely sleeping on the one bed we would all share for the night I felt absolutely alive.
I have found the times in my life of not knowing and being outside of my comfort zone to have been extraordinary. Often we strive to cut out uncertainty from our lives. We strive for an education, which will ensure a job, which will insure an income, which will ensure savings for old age etc. Truth be told this just is not the truth! The future is uncertain for all of us, no matter how secure we feel today, tomorrow has no certainty.
So why not embrace not knowing and being uncertain, live the present moment optimally outside of your comfort zone and have faith in the future.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen”
