The Quest for Simplicity

A Movement Centuries in the Making

The desire for simple living has been around for hundreds of years. “From the earliest days of the American experience, advocates of simple living have challenged consumerism and materialism,” says Jerome Segal, Ph.D., of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland in College Park, “although simple living, or plain living, as it was sometimes called, has meant different things to different groups.”

Throughout the 1800s, writers and philosophers from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau to the lesser known but sharp-tongued John Ruskin advocated various forms of simpler living for their inherent virtue and the larger benefits to society in general. Thoreau believed that consuming and owning less freed one up for the pursuit of the arts and development of one’s intellect.

For another century, the growing nation—facing war, boom times, depression, and social movements—teetered back and forth between conspicuous consumption and the seemingly nobler pursuit of voluntary simplicity, which included ecological notions like reduced consumption, recycling, conservation, and a generally simple lifestyle.

Today, this movement is so widespread that the term simplicity means many things to many different people. Among the many definitions are the following: more time, less stress, more leisure, fewer bills to pay, less clutter, less to clean and maintain, greater peace of mind, and spirituality. Your quest for simplicity may encompass one or all of these notions.

How to Wrestle with Complexities and Win

Acknowledge the reality of the times

Merely being born into this world at this time all but guarantees that you will face a never-ending stream of complexity—inside your home, when you step outside, on the highway, at work, and everywhere in between. Acknowledging this reality is one of the most basic and effective steps for achieving redress. If you can firmly and conclusively identify the root causes of the problems that you face, you’re in a far better situation to take control. Some people won’t get to this level of understanding in their entire lives. Sadly, they’ll blame themselves or someone else.

View your problems as challenges

The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, Ph.D. would amaze his colleagues and students when he first encountered a complex physics problem. He would dive in with disarming enthusiasm, saying, “Well, what have we here?” To him, a problem was an opportunity dressed up in disguise. Complexity was a challenge to be solved. He thought it was good fun to tackle and solve what baffled others. Dr. Feynman didn’t resist what he found; he used it to flourish. He recognized that by identifying and accepting the problem, he was already that much closer to resolution.

Turn the question around

If you’re facing a tough challenge, employ language that will help you rather than leave you in a quandary. When beset by complexity, rather than asking yourself “What can I do?” ask yourself “What will I do?” Then, get out a piece of paper and start writing down whatever answers come to you.

Rather than asking how you can make time for both your family and your work, ask yourself how you will make time for your family and your work. Even a generic question such as “What can I do about this issue?” can be converted into a more powerful inquiry: “How will I handle this issue?”

Hold on to your standards of cleanliness and order

Some advice-givers say that the road to simplicity is to do less, as in: Don’t make your bed each morning. That’s fine if you live alone and if no one ever glances into your bedroom. For many people, however, making the bed is an initiation to the day. It’s an official completion of sleep, providing energy, direction, and focus for moving on to what comes next.

Leaving things undone, even if you save a few minutes in your day, does not support the notion of simplicity. Forsaking order and decorum is not simplicity. Leaving things incomplete all around you is not simplicity. Ignoring simple tasks will save you negligible time and could erode your sense of balance.

Acknowledge your goal as worthy

If you’ve resolved to make your life simpler, then you’re well on the road to achieving that. Some people, however, mistakenly believe that simplicity means having less of a life—and not being as happy, independent, or comfortable as they once were. Those who scoff at the notion of making their lives simpler might believe that the sacrifices are too great. Yet the opposite is true. If you’ve resolved to make your life simpler, you’re likely to be happier, more independent, and ultimately more comfortable. It’s not necessarily less of a life—it’s a different life.

Make happiness a priority

Happiness is underrated. The quest for happiness ought to be the underpinning of everything that you do, believes management guru and author Brian Tracy, based in Southern California. Tracy explains in his lectures that unless you do work that makes you happy, have relationships that make you happy, and engage in hobbies and activities that make you happy, you’re unmercifully consuming the time in your life. By striving for the things that make you happy, you’re more productive, energetic, focused, and directed. You’re able to give more of yourself to others. You’re able to have more fulfilling experiences and maintain the feeling of being in control of your life. What a deal.

Forget the symbols of success

Attempting to keep up with the Joneses is inherently complex. At its worst, it means always having the latest model car, the fastest computer with the biggest hard drive, the largest house, and the most chic vacation home. It means maintaining a killer wardrobe, sending your children to exclusive schools, joining the right clubs, paying the large initiation fees, and making appearances. Chasing after such symbols of achievement can be an all-consuming, hollow existence.

Choose comfort over fashion

If you can muster the mental and emotional strength to let go of the trappings of success and instead focus on what is comfortable, rewarding, and enjoyable, your life will be that much simpler. A study of millionaires, for example, reported that most are unpretentious people who drive older cars, dress plainly, and long ago developed the habit of living within their means while saving at least 15 percent of their annual incomes.

Above all else, choose good health

Poor health is complexity; good health is simplicity. Most people deplete their health in pursuit of wealth, and then spend that wealth trying to regain their health, according to Wayne Pickering, a health and nutrition trainer based in Daytona Beach, Florida. If ever there was a vicious circle, this is it. So if you want a simpler life, stay healthy. You’ll have fewer trips to the hospital, fewer doctor visits, fewer bills, fewer needs for medication, fewer days away from work, and fewer restrictions on how you live your life.

Carve out personal time for yourself

Having some personal time for yourself is part and parcel of having a sense of independence and feeling in control of your life. Undoubtedly, you’ve heard this before, but have you done anything about it? No matter how complex your job or domestic situation may be, there are periods throughout the day and the week and the month and the year in which you can make some time for yourself. The simplest way to do it is also the most effective: Literally schedule time for yourself in your personal calendar, scheduler, or appointment book.

Learn to live with less television

A decision to watch one fewer television show per week, say from 8 to 9 PM on Mondays, would yield 52 hours a year—hours when you can take a walk, work on your list of household repairs, write poetry, play basketball, sew, meditate, actually talk to your kids, go bowling, and do all the things you say you never have time for. Come to think of it, why not take two hours off from TV every Monday?

Go for a walk without your wallet

You read it correctly. A master stroke of making your life simpler is to take a walk without any credit cards or money in your pocket. If it’s around your neighborhood, you don’t need to have these items with you anyway. A revealing test of character is to walk past a row of stores without having the means to stop in and buy anything. Walking without your wallet enables you to discover the simple pleasure of, well, walking.

If you see something on your sojourns that you simply must have, relax. It will still be there if you choose to return. Often, however, to your extreme benefit, the impulse to buy will subside, and you’ll arrive at the happy conclusion that you can well do without the item. Meanwhile, your stroll is helping you burn calories, stay in shape, and see a little bit of the world at close range.

Besiege your tailor

Round up every stitch of clothing you own that needs to be taken up, taken out, stitched, sewn, mended, or otherwise altered. Unless you’re an absolute whiz with a sewing machine, take all of these to the tailor in one fell swoop. Ask for your tailor’s best volume rate. Then, take your ticket and leave. For far less money than it would have cost you to buy new goods, you just updated your wardrobe in grand fashion and made your life a whole lot simpler.

Round up everything you won’t use again

Early some Saturday morning, following a wonderful night of sleep, arise and go through your home from top to bottom on a reconnaissance mission. Your goal is to gather up every item that’s been taking up space but that you’re not likely to use again. What kinds of items? Clothes, books, magazines, CDs, knickknacks, souvenirs, toys, appliances, equipment, and anything else you haven’t touched in a year or more that you can part with unemotionally.

Then get these items out of your life once and for all. Hold a garage sale if you have the time and energy. Otherwise, turn them over to secondhand stores, church bazaars, or Goodwill. Don’t let these items just loiter around your house in boxes—your home needs the breathing space.