What is essential?

One week down the road...  this post is inspired by a comment a friend of mine told me when I came across her at Starbucks this morning... and also by other comments or discussions or questions my husband and I had over the last week.

The comment was "Do you really need that coffee?"  And it made me think about it of course... And it just made me realize that what is essential may not be the same to all...  To some having a big house and a nice car, drinking the finest wine, going on nice trips far far away, buying a Gucci purse, fine jewelry or the latest perfume is essential...  For others, have a winter coat, finding chucked away perfeclty eatible food and be able to take a shower one in a blue moon is esential...  

I am not judging....  this is what is essential to THEM at that point in their life... There is nothing wrong with that per say....  Now the true questions is, what is essential to Real and I....  this is what we should go with since we made that new years resolution...  
In order for us to establish what is essential we had to ask ourselves what do we want from life?  Why are we doing this?
We want to be healthy, respect the environment (that includes everything that is on this earth... be it living or not) and we want to leave a better place on earth for our kids and all their friends and the friends of their friends and so on... 
Now all this started a few years ago with us going yoga and mediation because we both needed it for different reasons... and we stated reading books on a bunch of different subjects... meditation books, yoga books, self development books, environment books...  John Robbins, Dr Dyer, Ghandi, Bouddha, Alicia Silverstone, Skinny bitch, Dominique Loreau, Marcia Pilote, David Sukuki are some of the peoples who's book we've read and that inspired us to name a few...  

So in reponse to all these books, we started by being vegetarian, then increase our yoga/meditation/reiki practice, stop taking medication of any kind, then we started eating less, and more organic, whole grains, less fast foods and junk foods...  then use the car less and less... so what we think is one of the things left for us to do is look at all the stuff we buy and the impact on the environment... the bigest problems was clothes... obviously we were buying a lot and ended up not wearing all of them and give it away to buy more... we were not putting it in the garbage at least!!!  So the main goal of this year is targeted toward clothes... we have more then plenty in our wardrobe to last a year or even a few years... and by doing this for a year, we are concious that it will make us question all the stuff we buy and create a new way of life...  that is more eco friendly...  and hopefully inspire others to at least think... sometimes about what they buy...

So what we will not question, because for US it is essential is:

1) Yoga/mediation/reiki stuff (except for yoga clothes which no one really needs since all you need is to be confortable to do yoga or meditation)
2) Organic food
3) Our regular chai lattes at Starbucks - consider part of our meals
4) Knitting stuff for my stitch n'bitch club - because I co-founded the club...  and I have no intention of doing only the bitching part
5) Bicycle stuff since this should become our main tranportation mode for the nicer months ( then again that excludes clothes specifically design for that since they are not really essential)
6) Our bi-annual retreat at Spa Eastman - part of our well being
7) Our monthly visit at Spa Finlandais - also part of our well being

Now for what we will systematically question includes, clothes, shoes, jewelry, CD/DVS, books, going to the movies, trips, restaurants, taking the car...  at least this is how we see it for now... we will see if this changes over time and of course you guys will be the first one to know!!!

Thanks to all of you who made us think about this and realize the we had not set clear boundaries...