Streamlining Your Life

NO doubt you've seen the word "simplicity" or the phrase "simplify your life" seemingly everywhere. There are numerous books, magazines, and a newsletter on the subject, and even advertising uses the phrase with come-ons, such as "buy our product to simplify your life." Some associate it with anticonsumerism or even deprivation, while others tout it as an excuse to spend their way to the simple life by purchasing exotic paraphernalia. What is it, really?

However we seek to get there, we're all attracted by the same profound yearning for more than the hectic, overwhelming, busy, and even numb lives that many of us lead. Life can be more than going to our jobs, going to the store, and going home at night, where we drop, exhausted, in front of the TV—only to repeat the process the next day. We want more, and many of us believe that if we simplify our lives, we can have more. Not more debt, clutter, and overcommitted calendars, but more depth, meaning, and vitality.

Simplicity means stripping away whatever is meaningless and being left with what truly matters:

Clearing your calendar of all the "I shoulds" and replacing them with what you love.

Freeing yourself from piles of clutter so you can breathe and relax.

Stopping foolish spending on your way to financial independence.

Simplicity is about living deliberately, and choosing your existence rather than sailing through life on autopilot. A simplified life is one that you have chosen thoughtfully, and, as a result, can bring you great depth and joy.

The great news is that simplicity is very much what you make it. You can simplify and live in a condo in the city; you can simplify and live in the woods. You can be any age, any race, live in any community. You can have a family, or you can be single. You can be a gourmet, you can love beauty, or you can love the plain and functional. To simplify, really simplify, you need to look inside and discover your own soul, your own heart’s longing, and peel away what obscures and hinders that discovery.

One woman said it well: "Simplicity is an individual thing...it has to be something that springs from the heart because it was always there, not something you can be talked into by persuasive people, or something that is brought on by financial necessity...this is not something we do because we want to be different, or because we’re rebellious to convention, but because our souls find a need for it."

The most notable proponent of this lifestyle was Henry David Thoreau. The following excerpt from his book, Walden, has become the embodiment of the simple living movement: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life."

Thoreau’s words have come to symbolize that yearning for a life so many of us wish we had, if only we weren’t so busy, so overwhelmed, and so burdened by demands. Thoreau’s maxim is not about literally moving to the woods (unless you want to). Rather, it is about why he moved to the woods: to live deliberately and not, when he came to die, discover that he had not lived. He did not want to die having lived only a mediocre or shallow life.

There are several religious groups who continue to practice simplicity as a way of life, such as the Quakers and Shakers in America, and, indeed, most of the world's great religions and philosophies have advocated some form of simple living. The Greek and Roman moral philosophers preached the virtues of the golden mean, as did the Old Testament prophets. The author of Proverbs prayed, "Give me neither poverty nor wealth but only enough."

In more modern days, simplicity was associated with the "back to the land" movement, advocated by those who rejected mainstream society in favor of a simpler way of life. While the outward manifestations of simplicity have evolved throughout the decades, the inner craving for a simpler, less complicated, deeper life has been the steady driving force.

Simplicity will allow you to live purposefully. Beyond just getting through the day or the week, you’ll live as if there were a higher purpose for your life. This can happen once you strip away all that is meaningless, freeing you to focus on what you really love.

What are the three areas of life in which most people need help simplifying? According to The Simple Living Guide, they are time, financial and home.