There are no tricks or hidden secrets among those who are happiest and most joyful in life.
But it does require discipline. It requires self-responsibility and accountability.
When anyone detaches from the wants of this life, then this world no longer has hold of him. He can live in perfect freedom, perfect joy, reaching upwards and outwards instead of trying to drink from the cup of the materialism that never satisfies.
In reviewing the stories of the happiest people who live simple lives, many gave up great incomes for the sake of following their dreams. The stresses associated with chasing the high paying job are gone. The weight of trying to meet deadlines set by others are gone. The burden of working one position that should be done by many no longer applies.
The expectations by others are replaced by the knowledge that just existing in this life matters. And that each person holds a precious place in this world.
Can someone who needs the paycheck add simplicity to their world?
It isn’t an easy answer. But it can be done.
It begins with boundaries. And a simple, two letter word: No!
…determine what is most important in your life that you are not willing to part with.
Learn to stop giving more of yourself away to a job. Do what is required, but set a boundary on just how much of yourself you are willing to give up of your personal life for someone else.
And determine what is most important in your life that you are not willing to part with. Family? Friendship? Faith? Freedom? All is within your control. But you must face the reality that something has to give.
Options…
You have options…ones you might not see. But you’ll never know until you start becoming more aware of where you are right now. And for that you need to keep track of exactly how your time – and money – is spent.
Make a budget of your time. It is necessary to find out where the minutes are spent. But you first must k now exactly what you are spending your minutes doing.
Start by taking a week and track what you do during the day within 15 minutes. You will be surprised just how long it really takes to get ready to leave the house each morning, or driving to work each day. But you won’t see it unless it’s written on paper, every day, for seven full days.
You also must find out how you are handling your money. The less you need, the less you need to worry about how much you earn.
So on the following week, keep track of the expenses you have. Every time you sneak a soda at the gas station or pick up snacks from the vending machine, you will see just where every penny went.
But only if you do your due diligence and write it all down.
Once those two main items are tracked, put it all together.
What did you discover?
Are you finding out where you are wasting time?
If you find that the job requires a long commute and eats into time better set aside for more important things, perhaps finding employment closer for less pay would work. The offset from the cost of gas and maintenance on the vehicle could make up the difference in expenses to justify the move.
How much time is being spent on distractions? If a job is so stressful that you spend hours on gaming or videos just to quiet your mind, perhaps something else that didn’t involve a blue-lit screen would work better. Like reading a book or playing a card game. Or just sitting on the back porch and listening to the rustle of wind in the leaves.
The body needs to rest, and so does the mind. Filling it with more stimulation doesn’t allow it the much needed downtime.
What about money?
Do you have to eat out, or can you bring your lunch to work? Do you need multiple phone plans, or can you live with one? Does your smart watch really have to have a plan, or can you use an older, simpler model without GPS and its own phone line?
We are meant to live a different way…
We are meant to live within the rhythm of nature. We are meant to live with the seasons, rejoice in the changes, adjust to the temperatures, and learn to live flexibly as the weather changes from day to day.
We, also, are meant to live by the sun, not a timepiece. As with many technologies, the tool of the clock has become the slave master. So rising and sleeping in rhythm with the rising and setting of the sun, changing with the seasons adds to the simple living concept.
We, also, are meant to live by the sun, not a timepiece. As with many technologies, the tool of the clock has become the slave master.
Turn down or off all artificial lighting when the night falls. Unlike modern lighting, the glow of natural lights, like candles and kerosene lanterns, doesn’t stop the sense of night as it enters the walls of the house. The body naturally begins to wind down, and the pressure of staying awake longer than is needed goes away.
Sleep becomes refreshing instead of the result of mental and emotional exhaustion.
When you are required to leave the house in the dark to get to work on time, and get home in the dark because of heavy traffic, could that be changed if you took a simpler job closer to home? Or work remotely?
Live with dirt between your toes and on your hands…
Garden. Wild craft and eat what is naturally available during each season, not when the grocery stores stock the shelves with produce grown out of season. Work the soil, use the physical body for the labor for which it was created. The weariness of physical work is a hard life, but generates endless satisfaction in the accomplishment of one’s own hands.
Movement…was created for reason
Movement wasn’t developed for the sake of gym equipment or exercising to no purpose. It was created for reason – to labor for survival. Sitting in an office chair all day in front of a computer screen or assembly line isn’t survival. If anything, it creates stagnation.
Pay attention to the physical needs as well as the emotional and spiritual ones.
Don’t fear the unknown…
Don’t live in fear of nature. The animals, insects, plants all have their place. Even mosquitoes and the insects eating your vegetable plants. Learn how to live with them, among them, and thrive.
Live and breathe your natural surroundings.
Remove the distractions…
Turn off or limit your technologies. Anyone who has found themselves falling down the internet rabbit hole can attest to the fact that the lure of discovery becomes lost time. There are only so many videos, news articles, informational pages, texts, Instagram posts, emails, etc. that anyone can assimilate during a single day.
Finding out through your tracker just out how many hours you waste each day can be a revelation. There’s nothing wrong with distractions. But if they become more hours in the day than necessary, it might be time to set limit on your devices.
If you aren’t ready to let go of the habit, figure out something way of making it harder to use it. Have it automatically shut down at a specific time. If you keep skirting around your tech assistance, then put it in a different room and lock it away. Then find a good book to read, play a variety of Solitaire or Word Ladders, bake a cake recipe you’ve never tried before, or go for a walk – even if it’s just around the block.
You’ll find yourself less and less likely to be dependent on the useless distraction as time goes on. Your brain will be stimulated, and you’ll be less likely to sit on the couch until you drop off in unrested exhaustion.
Get rid of debt…
There is no other created burden so greatthan the requirement to borrow to get what you need. Or want.
Credit cards, credit scores, house mortgage, car loans…do we need them? And if we have them, can we stop buying more using them? More importantly, how long will it take to pay them all off? Most people in the world pay their goods in cash or barter. Why do we have to live so differently? So complexly?
Yes, getting out of perpetual debt cycle can be done. But it requires a change is expectations.
Do you need the newest car, latest and greatest technology, a newer house? Or can you downgrade you expectations and be satisfied that you have a vehicle that gets you where you want to go? A roof over your head that doesn’t leak? Or a computer or device that still operates, even if it’s 10 years old?
Being satisfied with what works and isn’t fancy is less stressful than having a payment on a car that is almost as much as a mortgage.
If you really want something or will need to eventually repair or replace an expensive item (like the car), learn to save up for it. You don’t need to go into debt.
Reduce the unnecessary…
Reduce or remove modern conveniences. I’m not sure exactly who said this, but it sums up the idea: “I’m hell bent on recovering from the age of convenience”.
We’ve become lazy and unimaginative when doing anything simple in life. Realizing that modern conveniences doesn’t always make our life easier, we fail to replace them with the more fulfilling but slightly more work-intensive methods.
We’ve become lazy and unimaginative when doing anything simple in life.
Can you beat an egg by hand using a fork or whisk, or must you use the blender? Can you pop popcorn using a stove top and pan, or do you have to use a microwave? Can you sew by hand or by using a treadle machine, or do you have to use an electric sewing machine? Do you have to buy cheap clothes made in a foreign country, or can you make them yourself?
Try to figure out how to live without the conveniences. Colins Beavan, a former electronic engineer, did just that and wrote about it in his book, “No Impact Man”. It changed his life and the life of his family forever.
So did a young man years ago as seen in one of my favorite inspirational videos:
Learn from the past…
Learn new skills from the lost arts of yesteryear: knitting, hand sewing, crochet, tatting, wood working, carving using hand tools, making soaps and candles, making cheeses and canned foods, baking your own breads, making your meals from scratch instead of scratching the box open, starting a fire without matches, writing a letter with a fountain pen, reading a paper book by candlelight as twilight falls…
Learning from the past means also learning how society operated just a few decades ago
Eating out at fast food restaurants came about in the 1960’s. Before that, McDonald’s was only a dream in someone’s head. If you wanted to eat out, you didn’t use credit cards. You used cash.
Learning from the past means also learning how society operated just a few decades ago before the advent of computerized, digitized lifestyles.
If money were no object, what would you do?
It’s an age-old question, but still remains. Remember what you wanted to do, wanted to be when you were a kid? Did you want to become a rocket engineer, ballerina, computer scientist, doctor, farmer? Did you want to be a vagabond, explorer, live in a log cabin in the woods? What changed? What did you become instead? Why?
Most of the time, the choices we made in our careers were made for financial reasons. We began to chase the dream of making enough money to get the house, the car, the job that would fill our every need. But we are rarely happy.
And we rarely ever think we have “enough”. No matter how large the paycheck, there always seems to be something else we spend it one – rarely necessities.
Desires of the heart…
If the appeal of living a simple life is growing inside you, save up enough money to take time off what you are doing to recapture that dream. Take that time to determine what is missing in your life. Then work a plan to get your dream back.
- Let go of the material wants.
- Give up the lust for more.
- Never push off today what you planned because you “don’t have enough money”.
- Get out of debt.
- Stay out of debt.
- Don’t let money cloud your vision of achieving your goals.
As with the monks of old, we need to give up all for the sake of something greater than material gain or possession. When we stop trying to build untenable goals of such things as financial stability, power, or position in a company, we’ll never find what we are really meant to do.
If the appeal of living a simple life is growing inside you, save up enough money to take time off what you are doing to recapture that dream.
As with the monks of old, we need to give up all for the sake of something greater than material gain or possession. When we stop trying to build untenable goals of such things as financial stability, power, or position in a company, we’ll never find what we are really meant to do. All those things are fleeting – trivial.
This is your life. Don’t give it away for something less.