Many, many years ago, I read some advice on personal Bible reading, that I now know (because you can search out those long-lost things) was written by Peter Kreeft. One of his statements was "Forget commentaries." At least that's the way I remembered it; but it turns out what he said was, "At first, forget commentaries." As in, maybe for the time being you should just focus on the experience; but somewhere along the road, you will find a use for one. Keep that in mind for a minute.
More recently, I was listening to a podcast called Elevating Motherhood, where the guest was Kendra Adachi, author of the Lazy Genius books. Kendra said: "We don't need other people's systems; we need principles that can help us to build our own systems that work for us."
I don't think either person was saying that there is no need ever for cookbooks, guidebooks, menu plans, instruction manuals, or Bible commentaries. Or, shall I be bold enough to say it, teaching curriculum, study guides, and booklists that you haven't compiled yourself.
There has been talk from time to time about interfering with the liberty of teachers to choose their own books, but one might as well contend for everyman's liberty to make his own boots! It is one of those questions of the division of labour which belong to our civilisation; and if the question of liberty be raised at all, why should we not go further and let the children choose their books? But we know very well that the liberty we worship is an elusive goddess and that we do not find it convenient to do all those things we are at liberty to do. (Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, p. 272)
So what does all that have to do with living within our financial means?
Think of the old story of someone who has just had their kitchen re-organized by a relative--and now they can't find anything. In the words of another popular declutterer, Dana K. White, that "helper" has violated the principle that you don't put things where you should look for them, you put them where you would look for them. If you would instinctively look for kitchen scissors in the knives and forks drawer, that is a system that works for you, and nobody should insist that scissors belong with the foil and plastic wrap.
In other words, a lot of our everyday decisions evolve organically. If we're basing those choices on a few basic principles and on the particular circumstances of our lives at this time, then we're probably good, no matter where we put the scissors. (We hang ours on a fridge magnet.) At certain times, we might decide that we need a little extra help nailing those principles down, or figuring out the details, and that's where the commentaries (and podcasts) come in.
When we combine experience with solid principles, we can stand up to people who want to re-organize our kitchen, our shopping, or our homeschooling. Maybe they're well-meaning, maybe they're trying to sell us something, but, either way, we're already doing fine thank you have a good day. A few years ago we were living in an apartment building next door to a discount store. We didn't have a lot of room for food storage; plus, the freezer compartment didn't work very well; things got freezer-burned after only a short time. So, we did a lot of quick trips to the store, buying just what we needed. It wasn't a method we would have officially recommended, but it kept enough food in our fridge. Now we live in a townhouse (with a better freezer), but we're still close to a couple of food stores, so we've continued to make frequent but smaller trips, looking for whatever's on sale. As a household of two, we don't buy pounds and pounds of meat at a time, but we do look for in-store discounts that let us score a meal's worth of pork chops for (sometimes) just a couple of dollars, combining them with things we already have in the cupboard (like the cranberry sauce we never did eat at Thanksgiving). As another example, we often make enough of a main dish to have leftovers for lunch; and if we don't have any leftovers around, maybe we heat up some canned soup. But if some friendly person came along and tried to move us into some other system, say weekly food delivery, or buying very large packages, or making lunches on Sunday for every day of the coming week, we might wonder if our way of doing things was wrong. Not pretty enough, not environmental enough, not frugal enough.
It's the same thing that makes people buy fancy household organizers, or labelled spice racks, or beautiful bookmarks. In Peter Kreeft's terms, maybe an expensive multi-volume Bible commentary. We want to do things better, more efficiently, more frugally; we may spend a lot of money attempting to do so. Now, sometimes that impulse to learn more, or try new ideas, is money well spent. Maybe we find a good book about car maintenance, or we download information that will help us save on baggage fees by travelling lighter. Other times it's just time and money wasted, and we probably sort of knew that all along, as we somewhat guiltily stick the package of chili powder in the cupboard instead of decanting it into its little jar.
We can learn from other people's systems. In fact, we should! But in the end, we are going to slip the scissors (or the birthday candles) back to wherever we will remember to look for them. We will also probably grab whatever piece of paper's handy for a bookmark.
Because it's enough.
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