So last night I went to a documentary, as part of Toronto’s Hot Doc festival, that was about a family who lives in Iraq and the grandmother who breaks rocks off the nearby mountain for a living.

The movie was slow and not exactly entertaining. It did however make me think.

The whole family lived in a stone structure. Grandparents, children x 2, and grandchildren x 4. They all slept on mattresses on the floor, ate together from a communal bowl on the floor, had 2 light bulbs for electricity (one  outside and one inside) and bathed and shaved from a pail once a week. I am sure this sounds miserable to you, but it was not for them.  This was not the impression I got.  It was clear the family was happy. They were content.

They had no expectations. They enjoyed their moments, worked hard, enjoyed tea together in the evening, watered the one plant they had (there was not a lot of water) and greeted the sun and the moon every day.

It was clear that it was not easy living. The woman worked hard for not much pay and everyone in the house pitched in. All of them however seemed at peace however and appreciative and respectful of each other and what they had.

They did not expect anything more, want or need anything more. This is what they knew.

They were not striving or stressed.  This is what life was.

There was beauty in it.

Beauty in the structure they lived in.

Beauty in the people that lived there.

Beauty in the one plant they  owned.

Beauty in the sun that rose.

Beauty in the rain

Beauty in the simplicity of it all.

I am not saying pack up everything and move to Iraq. But I am saying: maybe we can learn something from the woman who breaks rocks.

As Abe Lincoln once said:  “Folks are usually as happy as they make their minds up to be”…