La Joie de Vivre!

Hey, it’s Leigh Ann Betts here for What’s Up Wednesday. Coming at you live from the Eiffel Tower.
Today, I want to talk to you about something that the French does well. And that’s the La Joie de Vivre. Basically that means the joy of living.

I’m on my vacation here with my man. We’re having a wonderful time. This is our second full day that we’ve been here. And I’ve got to say, I’ve been watching the French and observing them. The people watching is second to none here. And, really noticing that they do know how to live well.
Right from just taking time to sit in the park and chill out or have a nap. Or, at a café, meet with friends and have good conversation. Enjoying the best food and wine. And obviously their baking is second to none. And, I just really noticed it.

In North America, for me anyway, part of my big journey has been to simplify my life and to help others simplify their lives. And I gotta say, the French have it dialed here. Partly because Paris is massive, they have to simplify their life. We’re staying in an Air BnB. And our flat is about 400 square feet. It is super tiny. And there’s one girl who lives in it. She has everything she needs, but barely anything in there. For example her couch also folds down into her bed. It’s like a futon. She only has enough glasses that she needs. Just a few sets of towels, things like that.

That had Grant and I talking, because we went down to the Sand River today, on the recommendation of a friend, we got a bottle of wine, and we had a nice little picnic with a picnic blanket and a baguette, beautiful cheese. We did it up right we had grapes, what else did we have? Anyways, it was lovely.
We were sitting there and we were like, how could we further simplify our life? And one of the things we thought were super cool today is that we were riding around on the bikes that they have here. They have 25,000 bikes that you can just go and rent and take them to the next location and you lock them up again. It’s like a buck eighty, yeah, 1.80 Europe Euros, so just less than $5 to do that.
So we were talking about that and we thought, what could we do? Could we actually go down to one car in our life? And that would really simplify. And if I needed to go to Calgary, maybe we could coordinate that he could get a ride to work. Just contemplating, does that really work? So contemplating your life, what could possibly work, or what do you think could happen there? I should put the Eiffel Tower in the background, because it’s so cool.

Anyway, we were just contemplating that. And what other things could we do? And just taking the time, they really take time here to enjoy life. I don’t know, I just feel like I want to travel more. Traveling really is the school of life. When you travel you get to appreciate the diversity of other cultures. You get to see how they do different things well. And you also get to be grateful for the things we miss from our part of the world. Like the beautiful blue sky and the wide spaces. We have less population. These are the kinds of things, when I come to a big city that I really, really appreciate and love.

Anyway, we’re going to head out. When you are in France, you do as the French. We are going to have a late dinner. It’s just after 9. We’re going to go have a nice dinner. And some wine. And just enjoy.
Think of what it is in your life, your La Joie de Vivre! That you want to bring forward. And one step that you could do today to move that into your life. So Au revoir. I’ll be coming at you next week from Bavaria Germany. Have a great night. Thanks for joining me.