Don't waste your life chasing only money, things, and power: a South American lesson

RISKS OF ATTACHMENT TO MONEY –

The best gift I received during the Christmas holidays was the autobiographical book by José Pepe Mujica, titled A black sheep in power. Pepe Mujica and the politics of the people. I'm reading it avidly, and as soon as I'm finished, I promise you a detailed account of the thoughts of someone I consider a key figure in this site's community and for the extraordinary value of his experience. A true, authentic story that says: yes, politics that is not just a race for power, money, success, but above all a response and many responses to people's needs, can be done. Or also: Woe betide anyone who wastes time just accumulating objects and things, without ever having the space to reflect on themselves, to truly look inside themselves..

José Pepe Mujica, president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, is an extraordinary, epic character, where his epic nature has almost nothing literary, but is kneaded with a concreteness that materializes on the border between everyday life and the authentic and therefore visionary aspiration of a life, and above all of a lifestyle, truly different.

ALSO READ: The lesson to the world from José Mujica, Uruguay's impoverished former president.

PEPE MUJICA'S LESSON –

Mujica he is a man, even before being a political figure, who due to his importance could, and should, teach in schools and universities all over the world the deepest meaning of the diptych Do not wasteLife, in this case. Coming to Italy to meet young people who were very curious about his philosophy of life, Mujica thundered against "the waste of life in consumerism and the accumulation of money."It's clear we're talking about a visionary, a son of that corner of the world, South America, where poverty and corruption are still two symmetrical everyday realities, two realities that run parallel. And some might even call Mujica a "populist," when his message and actions are the exact opposite of populism. As president, he reduced the percentage of poor people in Uruguay to 9-10 percent of the population, brought peace to the country, devastated by years of civil war, and gave an exemplary, unique lesson in what it means to govern according to the spirit of service, the interests of the people, and not one's own personal enrichment, in terms of career and wealth.And he did this even with non-rhetorical gestures, such as the decision to cut his salary and continue living on the family farm, without ever moving into the presidential palace.

TO KNOW MORE: In Uruguay, computers and bicycles are offered to citizens who hand over their weapons.

RISKS OF MONEY OBSESSION –

For goodness sake, well-being is a legitimate achievement, an aspiration that has fortunately been part of man's DNA for centuries now, and wealth, as such, should not be considered "the world's dung." But the real waste that Mujica talks about is something deeper, is a concept that crosses religion and philosophy, and then intersects politics and economics. It is the waste with which, by dint of being focused on accumulating money, power, career and objects ('sick stuff' says the former president), we lose sight of, and give up, what we really need (yesterday, today and tomorrow) counts in lifeAnd it measures the quality of a life, of a lifestyle. That is, the quality of affections, the things we like, the pleasure of our time (free and otherwise), the cultivation of interests, curiosities and authentic passions, the desire for freedom.Here lies the greatest waste of contemporary times; here man, though seemingly rich and/or well-off, becomes poor and/or very poor. Waste is coupled with a compulsion to accumulate, which, as is also written in the Gospels and as Mujica repeats, almost as if he were a priest of a secular religion, leads nowhere, since what we compulsively accumulate today will not follow us tomorrow. Nowhere, in God's world, if we are believers; in nothingness, if we are non-believers. Rather than waste our lives in the pursuit of wealth, power, and objects, all of which are increasingly exaggerated, we must spend it in search of a utopia, of an impossible goal, but precisely for this reason within reach: authenticity. happiness which needs time to be discovered and consumed. And the answer to this senseless waste cannot but pass through a lifestyle that embodies the value of sobriety, not as an apology for poverty, which instead must be fought, opposed and eliminated, but as a lifestyle adopted by those who have neither the desire nor the interest nor the time to waste their existence.

IN THE VIDEO, THE INTERVIEW IN WHICH MUJICA TALKS ABOUT HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE:

TO KNOW MORE: New lifestyles, the paths to get there. Moderation, time, and space.