I came across this the other day and thought you all would enjoy it. No idea where it came from, but worth posting for sure.

Make the most of today.

We’ve arrived. And so far, after one week, it’s everything we had imagined it could be and hoped it would be. North Bennington is a little village in the Vermont woods, with just a 175 year old coffee shop/deli/mini-mart store, a lawnmower service shop, a barber shop, and a very elegant dinner place. Oh, and there’s that little thing called Bennington College, which was founded in 1932 and has an incredible campus. Lucky kids.

The entire town is seemingly small enough to sit atop a sheet of plywood and be a decoration for a small scale train set at Christmas, if it weren’t life-size. And if you want more, you have to drive the 5-6 miles down to Bennington where the grocery stores, the old main street with shops and restaurants, and the galleries and museums are. It’s an easy drive, but it makes all the difference in the world being just a few miles up the road. It’s like being in the middle of nowhere while being surrounded by everything you need in life. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is incredibly friendly and nice here. Too nice, at first — it’s awfully strange for everyone you pass by, everywhere you go, to say hello. Walking down the street? The people in the cars that pass you wave at you. But after a week of being here, you rather enjoy it and you know you would miss it if it weren’t going on. When the sun goes down, it’s dead quiet outside and you can see the stars forever. It’s fantastic. Hearing booming car stereos and roaring motocycles that could raise the dead are now a thing of my past.

I have mapped out our morning 3-5 mile run on picturesque dirt roads by farms and horses, and I even ran into my buddy from high school at the store the first day we were here. (I knew he lived 20 minutes up the road, but what are the chances?)

We are currently renting a furnished condo, and soon we will begin searching for a small house to rent immediately outside of “downtown” North Bennington. Am hopeful for some space to garden, some room to stretch our legs a little more, and a woodstove to warm our bones by on these cold Vermont winter nights.

The beginning of the adventure is starting off on the right foot. Can’t wait to see what’s around the corner. Simple living, it’s what’s for life.

If you haven’t read this post by Matt Gemmell on his site, I suggest you go there immediately and do so. Almost every point he makes is something I have been concentrating on doing for the past 12 months, and seeing it written down by someone else kind of validates my own actions. From the post:

A major lesson I’ve learned (which I had to teach myself) is that it’s OK to cut out negative people from your life. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but people don’t have a free pass to be heard by you, particularly if their manner of expression is consistently unpleasant or unproductive.

The truth is, it’s OK to curate your life. You’re allowed to manage your interactions with people, online as well as offline. We make choices every day that limit our exposure to things (or people) that are frustrating, confusing or unpleasant – and you’re still allowed to do that even if you have an audience.

Do yourself a favor and read the entire post. Twice.

Simplicity, by Matt Gemmell.