My Style

The ‘voluntary simplicity’ movement is aimed at changing the way we live and relate as well as how we spend.  There is no doubt that most of us over-consume.  We have far more than we need to live a comfortable lifestyle and most of us are also over-committed in terms of energy and time.

Voluntary simplicity is not necessarily about being frugal, although that can be part of it, but about reducing our material consumption and increasing our ability to relate to and engage with our families and loved ones.

 Many of us shop to fill a void, or because we are bored, or to reward ourselves for hard week at work.  Once the novelty of ownership has worn off, the ’stuff’ we have spent our hard earned cash on just becomes another piece of worthless, or at best low value, clutter clogging up our lives and minds and draining us of our life force.

Life force?  Yes.  think about it.  You trade your time and energy aka your life force, for your paycheck.  Therefore, you aren’t just spending money, you are spending your life force.  Everything you consume and collect has a ‘psychic’ or spiritual cost as well as a dollar value. 

The book that got me started down this path was Not Buying It - My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine.   Borrow it from the library and read it.

Take a look at Small Revolutions for another view on Voluntary Simplicity.

www.zenhabits.net is another site I came across recently that promotes a more simple way of life.