I have a good life. I live in a beautiful house, have a great career, a hard working husband  and beautiful children. What more could I ask for?

What I really wish for is LESS.

A smaller house, less stuff, less stress… more time with the people that really matter.

I was at a funeral once. It was packed with people sobbing.. remembering the life of the man who had died. I looked around and was disturbed by how many people were in the room who had been … well.. crappy friends. The room was filled with “friends” who had talked trash,  been judgmental, and flat out were jerks to the guy who lay there pulse less about to be buried under the cold earth. These people had no respect for him while he was alive.. yet there they were, showing respect for him when he was dead. Is there anything more fake than that?  I couldn’t help but think that it would have been one of those times when less is more.

Cars filled the parking lot and lined the road and I wonder how many of those people were true, loyal, loving friends. I wonder how many of those people really knew what was in his heart the days before he died. Did they care?  Did they gripe about having to take a day off for his funeral? Did any of them have the courage to say to his face what they had been saying for years behind his back?  Were they really friends at all? Did they know his hopes and dreams? Would they miss the sound of his laughter or his slightly crooked teeth when he smiled? I couldn’t help but wonder and be sad. It was fake. All of it was fake and sickening.

My hope is that I have less. Less stuff in my life.. because it’s just stuff. Less “friends”.. and more true love. Less stress and more laughter. Less fake and more real. Less work more play. Less hurt and more joy.

When I die. I don’t want cars to fill the parking lot and line the roads. I want the few people that I love and truly loved me back to celebrate my life.

In so many ways life really is all about less being more.

Related:

I already talked to my sister, Bridget, about being a bouncer at my funeral. Hopefully that’s not for a really long time, but if you’ve ever talked crap about me and don’t know that my nostrils flair when I laugh.. or that my right eye is a quarter brown…. your ass is getting bounced. She’s also going to make you walk through a fake-o-meter.. so if you’ve got some fakeness issues. Work it out now.  ;) Sorry. It’s my funeral/party. I get to make the rules.

Oh yeah.. BYOB! :)