This is a matter of freedom. If you don't have many possessions then you don't need to work all your life like a slave to sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself.
Interpretation
Possessing fewer items can lead to greater freedom and more time for oneself.
In this quote, Jose Mujica emphasizes the relationship between material possessions and personal freedom. He suggests that when individuals have fewer belongings, they become less burdened by the need to constantly work to maintain those possessions, allowing them more time to explore their interests and live life on their own terms. This perspective advocates for a simpler lifestyle that prioritizes personal freedom over material accumulation.
In practice
This quote is perfect for discussions about minimalism and the benefits of a simpler lifestyle.
My goal is to achieve a little less injustice in Uruguay, to help the most vulnerable and to leave behind a political way of thinking, a way of looking at the future that will be passed on and used to move forward. There's nothing short-term, no victory around the corner. I will not achieve paradise or anything like that. What I want is to fight for the common good to progress. Life slips by. The way to prolong it is for others to continue your work.
We can almost recycle everything now. If we lived within our means, by being prudent, the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction. But we think as people and countries, not as a species.
If we lived within our means - by being prudent - the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction. But we think as people and countries, not as a species.
I can live well with what I have.I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more.
I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live. My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history. There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress.
I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor.
When all is said and done, we exist only in relation to the world, and our senses evolved as scouts who bridge that divide and provide volumes of information, warnings and rewards.
It is all too common for caterpillars to become butterflies and then to maintain that in their youth they had been little butterflies. Maturation makes liars of us all.
My idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing and full of cruelties, vanities, arrogances, meannesses and hypocrisies.
Eyes...They speak all languages.
Utopias and dystopias can exist side by side, even in the same moment. Which one you're in depends entirely on your point of view.
It can hardly be denied that such a demand quite arbitrarily limits the facts which are to be admitted as possible causes of the events which occur in the real world.
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