They say that the simplest things in life are free!  How very true this is!  Money isn’t everything, and it certainly cannot buy you happiness!  I am poor, I live the life of a pauper, but I am also rich as I see what most people tend to overlook; the beauty that surrounds us each and everyday!  I live alone!  Solitude is my friend, my companion!  I live in the wilderness surrounded by a river, there are mountains all about me, how I treasure this small world in which I live!  I have been living like this for many years!  I’m now fifty-two years of age and I still feel as fit as  fiddle!  I chose this way of life many years ago.  Once upon a time I used to live in the big city with its towering buildings of steel!  Oh how I detested that way of life!  I had money back then, but where was my happiness?  Where had my feelings of inner warmth and satisfaction disappeared to?  That was a life I no longer wanted to experience!  I had always somehow entertained images and pictures of me living somewhere, some place in the middle of no where; somewhere I would begin to feel invigorated once more!  So, here I am!  I wake up each morning, I reach for the sky and stretch, my body cries out in pleasure and I feel that I can begin to smile once more!

My way of life is very simple!  I chop and gather wood in order to feed my log fire!  I stand erect and there’s always the same giant beast of a mountain that greets me, with its snow-capped peak; true beauty, pure bliss!  How this scenery costs nothing, I enjoy its pleasures for as long as I choose!  My back screams in protest on the odd occasion that I swing my axe against the trunk of a tree!  I would rather experience this knowing that I am surrounded by the riches that nature has to offer!  The winters can be extremely cruel but it is then that I enclose myself within the confines of my wooden cabin!  I have the fire in full swing and I notice how beautiful it looks, the heat lightly caresses my face and I close my eyes in reflection of days gone by!  I reflect on how it’s possible to have so little and yet experience so much!  It’s dark outside and the wind whistles and howls, music to my ears, so beautiful, a sound to be cherished!  It seems that I am not alone during these dark winter nights!  As the moon begins to dance in the sky I notice such beautiful singing, the wolves are singing to me!  How the pack howls and cries, a beautiful song, directed at the moon, directed at me!  This is what I cherish!  These thoughts are what I will hold dear within the confines of my mind!

I am so happy here, so content!  I am loved by the trees; the snow-capped mountain looks down upon me as I sleep.  I feel secure, I can breathe easily and it feels so good to be alive!  I am getting on in years now and I have decided that this is where I will breathe my last!  From the soil I came and to the soil I will return!  Appreciating the little things in life, this is what I have experienced.  Should any strangers happen to pass by, it is my hope that they will receive a message: that this was one life well lived!  Who was this stranger?  Oh what a simple life!  How beautiful!  Oh that we may experience part of his world!