Living my dream on One Planet by Pacha

Living my Dream on One Planet
(an essay written for a Japanese writing competition)
By Pacha Luque-Light


The kind of future I wish to create for myself and the world is in realising we can live happily and simply, in peace and without destroying our Earth. My dream is already real for me – but I hope I can inspire others to want to live this way too.

I live on one planet and that’s just enough for me.
All around me, in my street, in this rich country of Australia, people use 2 or 3, or even more planets to live.  A normal house here usually has 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Not many people have vegetable gardens, just lots of lawn and they use a lot of electricity and town water. There are TV sets in every room and kids don’t seem to go outside very much, their parents drive them to school and everywhere else it seems.

Many of my classmates have lots of money to spend for food, new clothes or make-up. Their parents are often busy working and don’t have time to come and watch them in their sports carnivals or talent shows. There are many kids around me who spend a lot of their day playing video games and have troubles with their weight and health.

We live differently - some people say we’re poor -  but I think we’re happy and it feels so good to be living gently on the Earth.

We live in a shed made into a house using mostly re-cycled materials. Just about everything we use, including our clothes, are second-hand. We have a compost toilet where the recycled waste is used to help our fruit trees grow. We get our electricity free from the sun and we get our water free from the rain from the sky! We have fruit trees and we grow vegetables and we share any extra we have with our neighbours. We don’t eat much meat, but sometimes our friends catch fish and share them with us.

Every day I wake up in the morning to the sound of lorikeets, kookaburras and other birds. I look out of my window into the trees and watch the wallabys nibbling the grass.

I get up to feed and play with our brumby (wild horse), Ollie. Everything is peaceful and right. I think people can find that peace and connection with nature everywhere they are.


One of the ways I feel most connected with nature and feel truly alive is in the ocean. When I surf I can feel the energy of the wave crashing and pushing and it ends up going so fast that you can stand up on a piece of fibre glass with wax and it is so pleasurable and thrilling: making that drop on a beautiful green wave is indescribable.

I have learnt that when you love doing something so much that this is what makes life so precious.


Partly it’s easy for us to live with less in Australia because we’ve had the experience of living with even less in Ecuador. We lived in a mud house in the cloud forest, one hour’s walk from the dirt road. We got our drinking water from a little stream and boiled it to be able to drink it.

For a hot shower we put some water in a black plastic bag and then by the afternoon we could have a really short hot wash.

We didn’t have any electricity, so we drew pictures, danced, gardened, climbed trees, read books, walked in the forest, visited our neighbours, played with horses and played all kinds of games. 


I have found that these life experiences are priceless. And we are still having them everyday.

My brother and I sometimes dance for more than an hour each day; we sing as we walk to the bus stop and have an opera singing matches - laughing so much we have water in our eyes! When we are not at home or in the community we are usually at the beach surfing, swimming, jumping off the sand dunes or looking in the rocks or making a tee pee or skating around with friends or family.


Living on one planet to me is probably the best lifestyle you could really get. You don’t always have happiness when you have money. True happiness comes from good memories and sharing these memories with your friends and family.  I think true happiness is being grateful for what you have. And when people see that kind of happiness, little by little, they want it too.


I am already living my dream. My hope for the future is that everyone realises that they can choose to live simply, peacefully and happily.