Avoiding the Greatest Waste in Life

“Many a little makes a mickle” is a life principle embraced by successful people like Oprah Winfrey and George Soros. They lived through difficult times and in places that were challenging for growth and development. Their success has inspired many people, but it has also stirred envy in those who, for various reasons, did not have the privileges that enabled them to become as successful.

We may judge such people however we like, but ultimately each person is responsible for their own life. Other people's lives are separate from ours and from our families, so what they feel about our actions is not our responsibility. Either 'yes' or 'no', which one of these that truly comes from the deepest part of your heart?

I see this attitude as a form of waste, perhaps the greatest waste in life. Why? Because it rarely produces lasting happiness. More often, it generates emotional garbage: sadness, annoyance, anger, hatred, shame, and many other negative feelings.

On the other hand, physical waste is one of humanity's greatest challenges today. Instead of sending nuclear bombs, one country could cripple another by sending waste. This does not only mean dirty, foul-smelling trash, but also waste in the form of by-products, such as plastic, which is derived from oil and natural gas. 

Illustration: Punden Mojorejo, Dau, Malang.

Use everything to the last drop

The Ket Indigenous Faith believers of Siberia, Russia, depend on nature for every aspect of their lives. Forests provide building materials, while rivers and lakes provide fish for their families. Taking from nature is not forbidden, but it must be done thoughtfully so the future can be welcomed with confidence rather than anxiety.

Besides performing rituals to ask permission before using natural resources, selectively cutting trees, and hunting responsibly, they uphold one crucial principle: everything taken from nature should be used as completely as possible so that nothing is wasted.

From the Ket perspective, the animals and plants they use are gifts from nature. Wasting any part of them means failing to appreciate both nature and their own hard work. Even the skins and bones of bears or deer are turned into tents, clothing, or knife handles.

Long before people in my village began collecting plastic waste to exchange for small amounts of money at recycling banks, the Ket people had already discovered how to live with almost no waste. To them, creating unnecessary waste is an act despised by their ancestors. Ironically, many of us only understood the wisdom of this belief after mountains of garbage caused deadly landslides.

The easiest waste to recycle

In this regard, you can see why emotional waste is the easiest kind of waste to recycle. Economic hardship leaves millions of people vulnerable to stress and emotional pressure. There is a very high chance that we encounter one of them every day, whether on the street, at school, at work, or in the market. Although we are not responsible for what others feel, regardless that every human being is born alone and dies alone, without bringing anyone else along. (dswas). 

The “Aid Mentality” That Starts the Downfall of Everything

When U.S. President Donald Trump dismantled USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) shortly after taking office in 2025, much of the world responded with a long sigh. It is not difficult to see why. Since its establishment in 1961, the agency had provided assistance to more than 130 countries around the world, supporting sectors such as education, healthcare, environmental protection, democratic governance, and many others.

Trump’s decision to shut down the agency was actually quite understandable. One reason is that the United States has accumulated an enormous national debt, partly because successive administrations spent considerable resources supporting development efforts in countries around the world. When USAID was first established, some recipient nations were facing severe hardships caused by natural disasters, political conflicts, and other crises that had left their populations struggling.

However, several countries that received USAID assistance were, in reality, doing reasonably well when the funding first arrived. They were not wealthy nations, but neither were they suffering from famine or major wars. Countries across Asia such as Indonesia, India, China, Bangladesh, and the Philippines are examples, as shown in this chart. Sadly, the standard of living in many of these recipient countries remained largely unchanged from the time USAID first transferred funds until the assistance was eventually discontinued.

If you click the link I provided above, you will see a world map displaying each country and the amount of aid it received from the United States. The darker the shade of blue, the more aid that country received. What I do not know is how the United States monitored and evaluated the effectiveness of the assistance it distributed. Did recipient countries actually improve their circumstances? Did they become more prosperous, healthier, better educated, and more democratic after receiving American aid?

If not, why was there no form of shock therapy to encourage recipient countries to improve their own situations? More troubling still, why would a major power such as the United States not have a system to evaluate whether the money it spent was truly benefiting the countries it chose to support?

Illustration: Ngliyep Beach, South Malang. 

Obligated to Give, Obligated to Receive

Before humanity entered the modern era, when people increasingly relied on themselves to solve life’s problems, asking for help was considered perfectly natural among followers of Siberian Indigenous Beliefs, both in the past and today. When they went hunting in the forest or fishing at sea, favorable natural conditions were essential for obtaining what they sought: animals or fish to serve as dinner for their families.

Nature is inherently unpredictable. For that reason, Tengrism, one branch of the Siberian Indigenous traditions, developed guidelines that prepared its followers to face whatever nature might bring. Living simply and helping preserve the surrounding environment were among the basic principles they were expected to follow, not because doing so would bring miracles or magically transform their lives.

The logic is straightforward. Living simply means consuming less and wasting less. If practiced consistently, shortages of fish and animals can be prevented. Hunting and fishing become more successful, and families at home can enjoy good meals every day.

Like many Indigenous belief systems around the world, Tengrism includes the practice of making offerings. Yet for its followers, offerings are primarily a way of acknowledging the existence of nature and everything within it. Offerings mean nothing if they are not accompanied by behavior that follows the principles passed down by their ancestors.

Selfless Giving Is a Myth

Even charitable organizations impose conditions on those who receive assistance. It is naïve to place complete faith in any entity that claims to provide help purely out of sincerity, without expecting or seeking anything in return. If generous financial assistance comes with no restrictions and no rules governing how it should be used, that is not necessarily something to celebrate.

Imagine that after decades of hardship, you suddenly become wealthy because of someone else's generosity. Then, just as suddenly, that support disappears and you find yourself struggling again.

Would you be able to return willingly to your former life, without regret, without anxiety, and without a sense of loss? (dswas). 

Patience and the Path to Well-Being

Football is essentially an effort by ten players on a team (excluding the goalkeeper) to move a ball across a 105-meter field and into the opponent’s net, all while repeatedly failing and trying again. The good news is that they have 90 minutes to keep trying, with the possibility of an additional 30 minutes if needed.

In other words, a footballer ought to be a patient person, considering that even after 120 minutes of running and chasing the ball, a winner may still not be determined. Patience is also required of supporters, who willingly set aside money to encourage their beloved teams wherever they compete.

Meanwhile, fans who cannot attend matches in person often sacrifice their sleep, waking up in the middle of the night just to watch their favorite stars play. That is why I have never quite understood why players or spectators sometimes end up in physical altercations over a football match.

Perhaps media coverage of the glamorous lifestyles and wealth of football celebrities has succeeded in obscuring an important fact: the immense patience required to guide a team toward championship success. Ironically, this type of coverage remains popular because it is easier and more enjoyable for us to consume.

This is understandable. Human beings need an escape from the bitterness of everyday reality, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that as long as it does not violate any laws. What we often sacrifice instead is our own right to live peacefully and free from inner suffering, otherwise known as stress. 

Illustration: Wijayakusuma flower (fishbone cactus) blooms only for several seconds at night

before it closes and fades in the next morning.

Adapting is patience in practice

Patience is far easier to talk about than to practice. Perhaps we can learn something about it from the traditional peoples of Siberia. In a land where temperatures plunge dozens of degrees below zero, where snow and ice stretch as far as the eye can see, they have lived for centuries.

Yet those extreme temperatures have not frozen their sensitivity, wisdom, or humanity. This is reflected in the Siberian Native Faith, one of whose teachings emphasizes patiently observing the movements of the natural world before deciding how to act in pursuit of a prosperous life amid conditions that seem to defy common sense.

Unlike people in modern cities, Indigenous Siberian communities do not just go hunting bears or fishing in rivers anytime they want to. Their patience in waiting for the right time to harvest nature’s resources represents a practical application of natural resource management. In fact, much of the damage found in modern human society can be traced back to impatience.

The patience taught within Indigenous Siberian traditions is not passive waiting, nor is it a matter of surrendering to whatever direction the wind happens to blow. Rather, it is about willingly adapting to changing circumstances while remaining focused on maintaining harmony with both fellow human beings and the natural world.

As nomadic communities, the Indigenous peoples of Siberia could have migrated to warmer, greener regions with more forgiving climates. Yet armed with deep knowledge of their environment, their ancestors chose to remain in the harsh conditions of the Arctic generation after generation, and they have successfully survived to this day.

The consequences of taking fast tracks

It is only natural to want more from life. After all, without human ambition, would the internet even exist? Yet the internet itself was created through a long process that took many years. Modern society, however, increasingly favors quick and easy ways of putting money into our hands.

Curiously, the easier it becomes to earn money today, the more complicated the consequences often become tomorrow. The more quickly and effortlessly we sell family-owned farmland, for example, why does the money we receive seem to disappear just as quickly?

Shortcuts can indeed bring prosperity, but often only for a moment. (dswas).

Why Abundance Disappears

Because nothing in this world lasts forever, everything will eventually run out, come to an end, or die. We have witnessed this reality with our own eyes. It is not merely rhetoric, but a fact of life. A wealthy family can fall into bankruptcy, a prosperous nation can drown in debt, abundant natural resources can be depleted, and even a flowing spring can cease to provide water. We tend to fear endings, even though death itself is a natural part of existence and can come to anyone.

For those shaped by experience or formal education, management is often seen as the key to preventing catastrophe. Most people believe that conservation and frugality are the best ways to extend the lifespan of the resources we possess, whether they are natural resources or financial assets. It is not a difficult approach to adopt, although it usually requires some degree of sacrifice.

To this day, we have not truly discovered reliable methods for increasing the flow of a natural spring, for example, nor have we found ways to replenish oil and gas reserves once they are exhausted. From the perspective of most people, nature is little more than an inanimate object to be exploited until nothing remains. Rarely do we consider replacing what we have taken, let alone caring for natural resources in ways that allow them to continue providing blessings and sustenance for humanity.

Illustration: Sumber Waras, Lawang, Malang. 

The Discipline of Respecting Nature

The habit of asking permission from nature before taking or exploiting what it contains is not easy to maintain, especially when those around us do not practice it. Yet among followers of the traditional Dvoieverie faith, particularly those living along the border between Ukraine and Russia and serving in the armed forces on either side, such customs still endure.

In the service of their countries, they often spend months deep in the wilderness. They live with solitude and inevitably depend on the forest for shelter, food, water, and even medicine. Amid these pressures, they come to recognize the generosity of the natural world, even though they have not entered it peacefully, unlike a group of hunters simply searching for rabbits in the woods.

Without orders, instructions, or commands, Dvoieverie practitioners within both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries have developed a habit of leaving offerings at the edge of forests or near springs before entering the woods, collecting water, fishing, hunting, or taking anything from the land. These offerings symbolize both a request for permission and an expression of gratitude toward nature. At the same time, they represent a form of sacrifice that can only be sustained through personal discipline.

Because both sides rely on the forests as places of refuge and concealment, access to woodland areas along the Ukraine–Russia border is heavily restricted, with few exceptions. Ironically, the prolonged conflict has become one of the main reasons these forests have remained beyond the reach of large corporations eager to exploit them.

Frugality Is Not the Only Way

Yes, frugality is not the only path toward preserving the continuity of nature's abundance. When practiced out of necessity rather than choice, frugality can become a source of sadness and hardship rather than a sustainable way of living. This is especially true when we still long to enjoy life exactly as we once did, because the past, however cherished, can never return.

Before we can truly care for nature and benefit from the results of that care, we must first cultivate the humility to treat nature as something worthy of respect rather than merely a resource to consume. Failing to do so may not seem like a serious problem today. The real problem emerges when a spring suddenly stops flowing, when scorching weather arrives because green spaces have disappeared, or when countless small blessings we once took for granted vanish and can no longer be enjoyed. (dswas)