Uncle Nino

Emily and I watched a movie this week called 'Uncle Nino.' It's about a man from Italy who travels to America to visit his nephew, Robert Micelli, and his wife and children. His primary purpose is to visit the grave of his brother, but he spends a couple of weeks with Robert whom he hasn't seen since Robert was a child. The contrast between Nino's life in Italy and the Micellis' life in Illinois is pretty amusing.

Nino is shown first in a beautiful little Italian village leisurely feeding himself and his dogs on the morning of his trip. He takes his suitcases out of his house to wait for a friend to pick him up and spends some time in his nice clothes gardening while he waits. On arriving at their destination, the friend asks Nino where his hat is. Realizing he forgot it at home, the friend gives him the hat he's wearing. The Micellis are shown next and they can't seem to slow down. The father is working hard to obtain a promotion; the mother is busy running errands and trying to keep her family together; the children have issues with school and home; and no one has time for each other ... or for Uncle Nino.

Somehow, Nino gets to know the family in spite of their lifestyle and helps them draw closer together. It's a really sweet story and too complicated to summarize so briefly, but hopefully that gives you a an idea of what it's about. I highly recommend it. It's a feel-good movie with all around good morals.

One of the basic messages, of course, is SLOW DOWN!! Life's too short to be so fast-paced. To really enjoy it, we need to focus on the things that matter most. Here's an easy example - 'family is more valuable than money' - according to a fortune cookie I got about 8 years ago. I keep it in my wallet just to remind myself.

And if family is more important than money, then a lot of us in America should probably work a little less and spend more time with our families. Of course that would necessarily mean less money. And that would mean we should be content with less. Henry David Thoreau was a good example of frugality. Thoreau's friend Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of him: "He chose to be rich by making his wants few, and supplying them himself." Maybe we should rethink our definition of 'rich'.

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau himself tells us in 'Walden', "we live meanly, like ants; .... Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. .... Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. .... The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast."

Interesting when you think about the state of the world economy and the calls for government measures of austerity throughout Europe. Shouldn't we the people, who have lived so high for so long on borrowed money, lead the way in scaling back our own needs and wants? Couldn't we take a lesson from Thoreau and simplify our lives? Wouldn't it be worth it to slow down a little and focus on the things that are most important - even if that means we have to sacrifice some of the things that we love, but that are less important?

Gandhi, recognizing his country's addiction to the luxuries of Great Britain, preached simplicity and austerity ... and he lived by his words. He was among the upper caste in India's social structure. He was educated as a barrister in England and could have had a relatively luxurious life. But his addiction to truth required that he search for his purpose in life and that he live a life of integrity according to the truths that he found. And this search led him to live a very simple life. Hard to argue with the wisdom of a man like Gandhi.

I'm not as brave as Thoreau and Gandhi, but I am willing to scale back my material wants if that's what my family needs. I loved the movie 'Uncle Nino' for that message of proper priorities. And I wish I had the courage to scale back even more. But for now, I will try to keep a balance in my life and remember that no matter what, nothing is worth the sacrifice of peace in my home and happiness in the lives of my wife and children.