01/15/2024
Permaculture Principles off the Farm: Designing our Life
Part 3: Obtain a Yield
Obtaining a Yield is a suggestion that we should grow and cultivate only those things in our life that offer us a yield or a benefit in return. To expand further, everything in the natural world has a purpose - sometimes more than one. This principle has been a foundational rule in permaculture designs. It wants one to design a system where every part of the garden or landscape serves a purpose, hopefully more than one purpose, and that anything that does not serve a purpose should be redesigned.
In a traditional sense, when someone says, obtain a yield, in relation to a garden or farm, we think crops, eggs, dairy, herbs, flowers, etc. However, when applying a yield to our life, we need to stop and think about the things that we spend our personal resources on and then ask ourselves, do we get a low or high yield in return - happiness, fulfillment, love, sense of purpose, feeling of worth, better health, and yes financial.
Work - We may go to work to get paid; but you have to ask yourself, "What do I actually yield from spending 8 to 12 hours on this job a day?" If the only yield that you are seeking, is a paycheck-that's ok; but perhaps, you also get a sense of purpose, or maybe you are able to help others, or your employed in your passion. Just stop and remind yourself, that each day you are spending 8 to 12 hours that you will never regain (time is non-renewable), so make sure that you are gaining enough of a yield (fulfillment) to justify those lost hours.
Time - In any given day - we are only allotted 24 hours. And in those 24 hours - how many hours add value to our life? Take a day and Observe how you spend your life. What things do you spend your time on and how much time? Are you doing things out of habit and add no value? How many of your actions in a day return a yield?
Some other questions you can begin to ask yourself:
What is it that I can yield easily?
What do I have a LOT of and of those things, which ones am I happy to have an abundance of and which would I prefer to have less of?
There is an endless amount of ways that you can apply this principle. The biggest questions though is ask - do I want the yields that I am receiving and am I receiving enough of a yield for my actions.
