"Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be."
--Samuel Johnson
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Many people confuse luxury with opulence. To understand luxury you must look at the true sense of the word. The American Heritage Dictionary defines luxury as "something....conducive to pleasure and comfort," so to indulge in luxury you need only to focus on what brings you pleasure and comfort. Does luxury have to mean diamonds and servants? Or can if be a plump down comforter on a cold night or a bowl of wild blueberries picked at the peak of that fruit's brief season? Practicing frugality allows you to organize your life and thinking in such a way as to control your own happiness. One way this is done is by allowing yourself to delight in ordinary things and occurrences.
As Thoreau so eloquently stated,"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor."
Make a conscious decision, at this moment to appreciate what your own life as to offer in the way of frugal luxuries.
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Delight in Ordinary Things.
40 years I was homesteading in northern Wisconsin on 3/4 of an acre with 200 foot frontage on the Wisconsin . We had chickens , 2 goats that I milked 2 times a day . A 30 by20 foot garden completely fenced in to protected from the deer and others . I also worked full time as a LPN. and had time to fish , explore and forage, spin and knit , read and walk in the woods. Life was good and bad , sweet and bitter but always simple.
