Greetings everyone! 🙌 Hope you're all doing well.
Exactly towards December last year, when people were bustling around preparing for the upcoming festive season, I woke up one day to encounter a scene that will linger in my thoughts for thousands of years.
It was around 5:00 am when I woke up to the scent of smoke permeating the air. It was very unusual, as no one in the compound cook with firewood, and the smoke didn't smell like that of a burning house. Of course, it was from a cooking fire, a scent I know well from growing up with it.
I got up and opened the curtain of my window. I don't close my window to allow breeze inside, which allowed the smoke to enter my house. I peeped and saw someone in a corner of the compound, sitting close to a fire. I opened the door and walked to the spot, only to meet my neighbor, a young man in his middle 30s, sitting on a bench close to the burning firewood, with a pot on top of it.
"Guy, how far? What's happening?" I asked, not looking too surprised because cooking on firewood was not strange to me.
"Haha! As you can see, I'm cooking," he laughed while picking up his phone to check something.
"When did this start? You're cooking on firewood; what happened? Your cooking gas got exhausted. Why didn't you tell me so I could lend you mine for the meantime?" I asked, bombarding him with endless questions in a calm manner though, because everywhere was still dark and calm.
"Bro, you won't understand. I have a lot on my mind, especially with Christmas approaching, and I need to cut back on some things to manage," he said boldly, which surprised me.
"Because you want to reduce your expenses to save money for Christmas, you suddenly switched to using firewood to cook? Don't you think it's awkward? Imagine what people would say if they found out," I said.
He laughed and replied that he didn't want people to notice, which is why he woke up at such an early hour to cook.
His approach surprised me a lot. That was the moment I realized there are levels to minimalism, and some people can go the extra mile to prove it. I used to consider myself as someone at the peak of my Minimalism because there were things I did that even my younger brother, who lives with me, disapproved of so strongly.
But that morning, I realized I'm just a 'baby minimalist' because I couldn't see myself going to such lengths.
The most surprising thing is that this guy works; I mean, he does menial jobs almost every day of the week, so it's not as if he doesn't have the money to refill his cooking gas cylinder to avoid using firewood to cook. He just decided to save keep his money....I jokingly asked him if he wants to buy a private jet. Lol😅
When I asked him how he got the firewood, whether he bought it, he said no, that he picked up some planks (wood) from building sites.
Although it's a good plan, he really went to extremes.
Thanks for reading.
This is my entry to #KISS prompt in Minimalist community
Images are mine
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
