I would call my life pretty simple. I don't have a television, or a stereo system. I don't have a lot of appointments or activities. I don't have a vacuum cleaner, or a carpet shampooing machine.
A lot of people do have carpet cleaning machines, though. It's kind of amazing to me. I repair said machines, so they get brought in to me when they stop working, which seems to be often, and almost invariably because they were not properly used or maintained. People often want them back in a hurry, too, seeming to expect while-you-wait service. I can't help but think that people do not need to own their own carpet cleaning machines. They need less carpet, fewer floors. These people have too much, not in the sense that they are depriving others or it is somehow unfair, but in the sense that what they have is literally more trouble for them than it can possibly be worth.
When I say I want for nothing, I don't mean that I don't want anything. I want a bigger pot so I can make long pasta. I want a better copy of the Ring Cycle. I want a low table with cushions around it to sit on if I ever have guests. I want to hammer the short story I'm working on into something resembling what I originally meant it to be.
Most of all, though, I want nothing. I want more nothing in my life, not even a vast expanse of emptiness, but just a general absence of all the hideous clutter everyone surrounds themselves with. My one room, quiet and spartan.
Or at least fewer damn carpet cleaners full of soap. You have to use the rinse setting, people, it's not rocket science.