Why Raw Life?
I chose the word raw life for a number of reasons
Raw Life is what we get when we strip away all the external things that make us look great or stop pretending like we have it all together in any area of our lives. Whether that is in our personal faith journey, a business we are working on, health, relationships or in our industry.
I did less than 5 minutes research online to see what information was out there about living a raw life. I sort of chuckled when I stumbled upon a whole lot of websites about raw food and eating. No surprises there!
We live in a world and a time where we segment every area of our life into these nice little boxes that we try and control and compartmentalise, to the detriment of ourselves and those around us. I am not saying this is wrong, I mean even my Substack here has 3 new sections called “Business”, “Faith” and “Technology”. But when we segment things into these “nice little boxes” and do this at the expense of the reality around us we miss out on real life, we miss out on the rawness of life. We also wonder why we don’t get ahead in life and can be left wondering “Why am I not succeeding?”
Part of the answer in this is getting back to who we are as a human being. I’m speaking not from some theoretical mumble jumble in my head as if I hadn’t experienced this before. I’m sharing this because I have experienced Raw Life.
There are so many facets to experiencing a raw life, that a few of us will not understand what it means. But I’ll give an example of one facet that I experienced a few years ago. One day I was walking through the super market aisles and as I looked around I had this thought “You need to be a producer, not a consumer”. The idea I had was not a new one and it didn’t just pop out of thin air, it was a thought built on a progression of other things I had thought and experienced before. And I believe it was inspired by my relationship with God among other things.
So I went on a journey (parallel to other things happening in my life at the time) of discovering what it meant to be a “producer”. I didn’t need to look far as we were living in the country and I could see producers/ farming all around me as I drove home. Also we were connected with different groups of people that were trying to become more “self sufficient”. But it wasn’t just about growing and consuming food.
Going from being a consumer to a producer was going to take a shift in my mindset. It was going to require a paradigm shift. I was already aware of consumerism and also the way food is produced for mass market and the fact that nutrition is often lost from the time it has been produced and then manufactured and placed on a supermarket shelf. As I started to meditate and think about this producer mindset and way of life further, I realised this wasn’t just about food. I started to have my eyes opened to how we as a society are so used to consuming (not just food, but products) that we often don’t step back and out of our consumption to understand the bigger picture.
For example we may be health and environmentally conscious, so we think buying a certain product that is marketed as healthy and environmentally friendly will help. But we don’t often step back and think “Do I need this product?” or is there something else I can do or produce in my own backyard or household that fulfils the same purpose? Also why am I purchasing this product? Is it because it gives me an excuse to “enjoy” something without being “unhealthy” or damaging the environment? We also might choose an electronic device because it appeals to our “needs”, but in reality most of these needs are wants and desires and actually destroy the value of other things. For example we all know how useful smartphones are, especially when it comes to wasting time.
We trade more temporary things that take our time away from the important things like family, relationships, friendships and our eternal purpose. This producer mindset is something that is a starting point for understanding raw life, but is not the only way to start to understand raw life. These are some of the other important facets of living and experiencing a raw life: Identity, Belief, Self Worth, Nature, Time vs Money, Producer, Purpose, Relationships.
My hope is that Raw Life is going to help you experience a life worth living that does not deny who you are as a human being and helps you understand your true value. Raw Life can seem messy at times and often when starting on this journey of Raw Life there are several areas that you will be questioning “What’s the point?”, but from my own and other’s experiences I can definitely say that it is worth it! I really look forward to sharing more on this journey.