Ahhh the simple life. You know the one where you cut out all the complicating clutter, get back to basics, where everything is just plain easier. Hold it! It’s not quite that. Or ‘quite not’ as the case may be say Patrick Fannin and Heather Mitchener the authors of Simplify Your Life. I am a fan of simplicity and have been reading new titles and rereading old ones to help me articulate to myself, if nothing else, what simple is and isn’t.
In the introduction "Simplify" states quite unequivocally what simple isn’t. Number one on that list is “easy”.
This sometimes comes as a surprise to people who endeavor to simplify their lives. In our quest for saner living we take any number of steps that feel most right to us such as eating more naturally, homeschooling, making what we need, and doing without. What comes next is often bewildering. We no longer are running to the store for milk and eggs, but instead we are called to the barn twice a day or more to attend to our livestock. Instead of running children to school and back, we are now creating personalized learning programs and checking math problems daily. Instead of spending our hard-earned cash at the box store we are spending our time sewing, cooking, and so on. Bottom line, they say- simplicity can be ‘complicated and exhausting’.
The flip side is that the energy expended in simplifying is often more satisfying than the time savers we have been told will enhance our quality of life. It is the process of taking care of ourselves and others that is as important as the care items themselves.
This was related in another new book House Thinking. Author Winifred Gallagher shares studies of polar bears. Polar bears in the wild spend hours in the repetitious action of hunting for fish in streams. When they are taken out of their habitat and placed in captivity where they are given all the fish they need they don’t relish in their newfound freedom from labor, rather they become despondent. Moreover, they begin to exhibit the symptoms of starvation.
This should rightly make us pause.
We are not meer animals reacting to instinct. We can reason. We apparently are not completely separate from our natures though and those same impulses towards self-sufficiency seem to be built into us. Perhaps the reason we find the steps necessary to move towards simplicity to be so satisfying is that we intuit that they are filling needs far beyond the physical.
Simplify Your Life claims to have captured the 50 Best Ways to make life saner. I might argue with that number, but there are some good guidelines given, particularly in the first half of the book. Following the "easy" train of thought, the next great myth they dispel is the need to go purchase more stuff for the paring down process. That may strike you as ironic but it is true. Many of us assume that in order to organize we need more stuff – crates, storage systems, new homes, new wardrobes, new careers. I have been known to fall into that rut, paralyzed with the *stuff* I have collected and the lifestyle we had created and unsure of how to begin the climb out. Buying more stuff makes you feel as though you are making some progress. We are accustomed to initiating change with purchase. A better step, says the book, is to take inventory of your life and your home and determine which parts of same are contributing to your overall happiness and which are dragging you down. Then begin to cull the latter – ruthlessly. You may eventually be led to make some of those other changes – in location, in vocation – but you will be in a better position to do so at that point.
We have made the location/vocation changes in recent years. We are still in the decluttering phase and may well be forever. This is likely less of an action and more of a process. It is a filtering of sorts. We continue to draw things and experiences to ourselves throughout our lives. Then we must discern which of those things and experiences continue to be a blessing and which become a burden. This discernment is making me look deeply at our belongings, our wardrobe, and the upcoming giftgiving season.
I am by no means the only one thinking about these things. If you want to visit more folks who are articulating this process you can try Amy’s Blog She has hired a professional organizer to help with the re-ordering of their nearly paid for home vs buying a larger place. In her post today she references Tackle It Tuesday which is more inspirational than I can say! This article, The Big Cleanup is a great start and the companion blog Living the Organized Life helps present concepts in digesible chunks. A similar blog is Neat Living which is as much about goal setting and reordering life as it is about neatness per se. Consider these more about living life on purpose and beginning the necessary process of viewing our things through new eyes.
I hope to share more of our journey, and those of the women who are also walking it, as time goes on. I lost a couple links to ladies who had ‘simplifying’ references on their blogs. My simple life gets ‘complicated and exhausting’ at times! So please do re-send if you have thoughts to add and I promise to try harder to get it posted. : ) I am indebted to the women who are helping me think through this process!
Starry Sky Journal 