Someone recently told me that they were tired of being in debt

When my husband and I started on a drastic debt-repayment plan 10 years ago, we had no extra money for anything but the absolute barest necessities for almost five years. I couldn’t even shop at thrift stores for clothes – that would’ve been too expensive for our severely limited budget. We learned to make things ourselves, accept hand-me-downs from friends and family, make do with what we had, or do without. It was either live like that or be forced into bankruptcy by our impatient and increasingly hostile creditors.

We chose to knuckle under and do what needed to be done – no matter how difficult – in order to pay off our creditors (mainly some huge hospital bills from three premature babies).

One of the first things I noticed when we started our debt repayment plan was the discontent that seemed to overtake me almost constantly. I started praying I’d discover where this discontent was coming from so I could overcome it and put it to rest. Well, it turned out for me, the main contentment robbers were:

1. Mail-order catalogs – The beautiful items in these catalogs were constant reminders of all the “wonderful” things I couldn’t afford. I overcame this particular contentment robber by tossing all catalogs directly into the recycling bin as soon as they arrived … without even glancing at them.
2. Shopping malls – I hadn’t realized how much “recreational shopping” breeds discontent. I started avoiding malls at all costs unless I had something specific I needed to buy, and even then, I only went in for the items on my list and then hurried back out before I got distracted by some new housewares store (my personal impulse buying weakness).
3. Commercial television Seeing all the latest and greatest constantly paraded before my eyes bred discontent. I turned off the TV except to watch videos from the library or PBS specials with my kids.
4. Women’s magazines – I canceled all my subscriptions. I didn’t have many magazines, but the pages of the ones I did collect showed perfect homes, beautiful clothes, pampering personal toiletries, etc., which caused me to suffer from what I considered almost a form of lust … maybe “greed” is another word for it?
5. Shopping channels / web sites – I’ve never actively watch shopping channels on TV, but I suppose they’re probably contentment robbers for many people. Also, certain “malls” and “shopping” areas on the Internet would serve as contentment robbers.

But probably the biggest surprise of all to me was the longer I practiced living frugally and simply, the more satisfied I was by the simpler pursuits.

We’re no longer in debt, although money’s still tight (being a single income family of five means money’s almost always tight). But I’m not discontent anymore. I have great satisfaction in knowing that our debts are “paid in full.” The accomplishment of paying off our debts is a great luxury in and of itself!

Plus, through the process of getting our finances in order, I’ve gained a new appreciation for the beauty and joy of life’s simpler pleasures. Shopping and acquiring new stuff holds little appeal for me anymore. Now I would much rather spend a day hiking a nature trail and picnicking in a meadow with my kids, than spending an expensive afternoon sauntering around the mall eating designer cinnamon rolls and sipping gourmet coffees.

But those weren’t always my priorities. And I can honestly say I’m much more content since my priorities and ideas of luxuries have changed.

Many times we don’t experience the joys of life as fully as we can because we’re too wrapped up in the busyness and dailyness of life. With so many conflicting complications tearing at the framework of our lives, is it any wonder we sometimes long to escape to a desert island and experience a little bit of that refreshing, slower-paced “island” time? Life throws so much at us, we often feel like we have no choice but to knuckle down under it all.

I’ve frequently heard people say busyness is just a fact of modern life so we’d just better learn to handle it, or discover how to thrive in the midst of chaos. Family responsibilities, careers, daycare, household chores, meal planning, bills, errands, health issues, car pools, school functions, sports, phone calls, traffic jams, community demands, church committees, political races, taxes, debt. These are just a few of the numerous – and often difficult – demands bombarding us daily.

When my first child was born, I was involved with a wide variety of activities. I was working part-time at a local hospital. I volunteered at an agency that offered peer counseling and support groups for women in crisis. I answered a hotline for a local crisis pregnancy center in my home. I facilitated study groups. I was the nursery director and preschool Sunday school teacher at our church. And I did all the normal wife/mother/homemaker things, too.

Busy, busy, busy, busy.

One day, before I’d finally stepped out of my over-commitments, I saw in my mind a picture of my life. I was sitting in the center and all around me were whirling the assorted activities that made up my busy days. I suddenly noticed that not only my activities but also my closely held personal priorities were circling around me. It dawned on me that maybe the priorities (God, family, service to others) needed to be set firmly in the center hub of the wheel and I needed to make sure the activities circling my life were actually revolving around my priorities, rather than just around me and my personal schedule.

I discovered in order to be true to my personal priorities at that time of my life, I needed to focus on being a wife. And a mother. And to focus on the spiritual aspects of life. And to be available. My life had been busy with service to others, but I found even after I shifted my focus to my home, opportunities for service continued to enter my life. Service to others became a natural outgrowth of my life, rather than a title on a name tag or a job description at church or one more “to-do” item on a list in my day planner.

In the book Finding Focus in a Whirlwind World, by Jean Fleming, the author says that she sits down about three or four times each year and reevaluates her various activities in light of her priorities. She said some seasons of life are full of busyness and we just can’t help it (sometimes that’s just the way life is – hectic and full), but other times we need to be sensitive to possibly needing to sit quietly and focus on quieter pursuits for a time.

In her book, Fleming compared her life to a tree. The trunk of the tree was her number one priority (which in her case was a strong commitment to God). Out of the trunk grew the main limbs which were the main activities of her life (parenthood, career, etc.) And then from the main limbs would grow all those little branches that had a tendency to grow and multiply quickly. The little branches were the general activities that would crowd in and fill up her day. Just like a tree grows healthier and more fruitful by regular pruning, Fleming saw her times of reevaluating her activities as that time of pruning her life to make it more fruitful. She found it more productive to do a few things well, rather than being involved with a myriad of conflicting activities, but not being fully fruitful with any of them.

I learned a valuable object lesson about pruning and fruitfulness in my own front yard. One year, I pruned back a clematis plant that was overgrowing the front of the house. I cut it back almost to the stump. My husband and neighbors all thought I’d killed the poor plant. And to be honest, sometimes I wondered if maybe I’d been a little overzealous in my pruning. But the following spring when the clematis bloomed, it was absolutely breathtaking. Every vine had almost an overabundance of blossoms. It was simply a mass of flowers – unlike anything I’d ever seen. Even people walking by on the sidewalk would stop to comment on how full and beautiful my plant was that year. But I know that if I hadn’t pruned the clematis back to the bare essentials, it would’ve continued to grow long and gangly, never achieving the level of beauty and fullness that came from focusing all its energy and growth into its stem and main branches.

While we can’t ever free ourselves fully from all of life’s demands, we can have hope to discover a sense of balance in our lives. Or we can identify ways to shift between the two extremes – finding a time and place in our lives and hearts for contemplation, and then alternating that with other times of busyness and distraction. In the book, Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh describes this balancing act as “the process of finding a rhythm of life with more creative pauses.” It can be difficult to find balance in the midst of life’s activities, but finding focus is necessary in order to function properly and reap full satisfaction and enjoyment from our busy lives full of activities, relationships and commitments.

This article was excerpted and adapted with permission from A Simple Choice: A practical guide for saving your time, money and sanity, Copyright Deborah Taylor-Hough. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Do you need to find balance in your life? Learn how to achieve balance in a multi-tasking world and understand how to evaluate and then incorporate balance in your life.