Rural Simplicity

When you look inside yourself and realize you have nothing to say. You've turned off your thinking brain, your curiosity brain, and you have turned on zombie mode. You go about your day to day life not making an effort to impact others, or better yourself, but simply to do, move, check off. Our world is good at getting us isolated, turned off, and whitewashed. If you go with the flow, you don't need to think. You will be told what is fashionable to wear, what the most popular places to eat out are, the hottest new T.V. shows to watch and what time they will be on, you will be coached on what extra curricular classes your child should be apart of and when practice and games are, you will be guided in what foods are "healthiest" to purchase or the fastest to make, the grocery ads will tell you what stores to buy from, and social media will keep you updated on your friends lives and all of the above mentioned as well. Do you ever get to the end of a day and wonde

How do you read? Speed read for need? Cozy couch snuggle up book for fun? Reading to your kids because they won't stop asking? Whatever you're reading don't zone out - or give up. Look for these things in whatever you are reading. 1) Expand your vocabulary. Whether you already have a large vocabulary or just know the basic slang, you can learn new words. Keep an eye out for words you've never heard, or words you've never quite understood, or even words that you know, but see them used differently. (maybe in a different era of history) 2) History. Speaking of history, we all know that history repeats itself. So anytime you are reading something with history in it, you can learn from what others have learned (or NOT learned) before you. Biographies are a favorite of mine and a great way to watch history cycles and compare them to things I am dealing with today. 3) Life Lessons. Whether you are reading fiction or non-fiction they are all written by re