Voluntary Simplicity

There is a movement that started a short while ago called the Voluntary Simplicity Movement.  It has branched out into all kinds of sub-movements.  The fact that movements like Voluntary Simplicity are spreading like wildfires and are even making national and international headlines once in a while, is a sign that we, mostly in Western societies, are moving quickly into what is somewhat ridiculously referred to as post-post-modernism.  Or, as I like to call it, Post-Consumerism.  So, what is all this Post?  What are these people up to and why?


These movements are a way of people moving beyond, transcending if you will, the fast-paced, complicated, modern lifestyles that the 20th century brought us.  The lifestyles in which you commute to work for an hour in an expensive car, sit behind a desk doing a job you don't like for 10 hours a day (in order to pay for your expensive car), commute back home in rush-hour traffic, plop down on your couch (feeling exhausted), watch TV until you fall asleep.  In your sparse moments of free-time, you go shopping for more gadgets, clothes and other "stuff" in an attempt to fill the empty void in your life (you just don't know what the void is).  So many people never even realize that they have a void they're trying to fill because they're going through this spin-cycle so fast, non-stop (as Annie Leonard refers to it, "the work-watch-spend treadmill"). 

However, many of those who have slowed down (and many more people are slowing down these days due to a slower economy) are finding that they feel happier when they're living a slower, simpler lifestyle.  There are people who are selling their houses, cars, jewelry and designer clothes in order to simplify and down-size.  What are they doing instead of working 50 hours a week and shopping?  They are finding a sense of balance, peace and satisfaction in the simple pleasures of being creative, spending quality time with others, growing their own food, being physically active and more.

They have more free-time and they are using it to learn and grow and express themselves.  They are making deeper, more meaningful connections with others.  They are learning more about themselves.  They are learning new skills like gardening, creating art, biking, speaking a different language, etc.  Many of the people who have taken this route have found a direct link between simplifying to a modest, but adequate amount of "stuff" and creating more meaning in their lives.  They've jumped off of the work-watch-spend cycle and have no regrets. 

For more about these movements, check out the following links:
Simple Living
100 Thing Challenge
Choosing Voluntary Simplicity
Voluntary Simplicity: UK perspective
Rowdy Kittens  (A blog by Tammy Strobel, who was interviewed and featured in a New York Times article about her decision to simplify and how she and her husband did it.  Unfortunately, further on in the article,of course, it discusses how the economy is shifting and how companies are now looking at how they can exploit this new trend to simplify... lol... I guess they don't get it.)