The Art of Simple Living

By Tiffany Washko

Simple living is the way an individual chooses to enjoy life in the simplest form possible without the comforts often found in high technological materials and wealth. The art of simple living may be described as living in a way that is outwardly simpler and inwardly richer; focusing more on the richness of the world’s natural resources rather than on the material things that often clutter our life.

Living a simple lifestyle may be classified as voluntary or a forced lifestyle. Voluntary simple living is a lifestyle that involves personal choice of living, wherein a family is trying to separate themselves from material richness. It is their own desire to live such a life to provide quality time for the family and for their spiritual growth. Those individuals or families who are living a simpler life would reduce the need for purchased goods, high class services, or time-consuming work for more money.

Being forced to live a simple lifestyle is common to unfortunate people who cannot afford material things due to the financial incapacity or limited financial resources. They are those individuals and families who are not properly compensated or who do not have jobs to provide their daily necessities. They have no choice but to live the simpler way of living.

For the families who are well-off but still prefer simple living, they do this either for spirituality, for physical health, for environmental sustainability, or for quality time to spend with the family. Whatever the reason, simple living does not necessarily mean avoiding enjoyment. The more money you spend, the more time you need to earn it and the less time you can have for your family.

The art of simple living is important for all of us. Through this lifestyle we help in the conservation of the environment. Most of us do save for the future or for the education of the kids; why can’t we save the environment as well for their safety and for the future generation? We can do it by living simple lives and by eliminating the machines and equipments that may pollute the environment or consume more of the energy.

Simple living has a lot to do with the environment and with the future generations. What we do today, what we buy today and what we throw away today will have a great impact on the whole world because life is interconnected with each other. Standard living is something that focuses more on the immaterial things in the earth such as the clean water, clean air, and clean planet; this only leads to doing the simple way of living.

Simple living may be a way to solve the ever growing economic and environmental crisis; but the real benefit of this is the happiness for each of us. Happiness in the true sense of the word is having your whole family close beside you most of the time in a safe and healthy environment. Simple life can yield happiness, especially if you and your whole family get to have longer quality time together. The art of simple living means richness for the family.

Tiffany Washko is the editor of Nature Moms, http://www.naturemoms.com and Instead of TV, http://www.insteadoftv.com After working several years in corporate healthcare marketing and public relations, she took time away to be a mother. This new pursuit lead her to a new passion, natural family living and writing about environmental and political issues. She currently works as a freelance writer and newspaper journalist.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tiffany_Washko

http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Art-of-Simple-Living&id=2226967

This article came from: Simple Living is an Art at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Mahatma Gandhi, Image via Wikipedia

Live simply that others may simply live. This statement, attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, provides the reason for simplifying our lives. Everything we buy has an environmental and human price tag. If I buy a pair of shoes, for example, they are made from a variety of materials that came from somewhere. People manufactured the shoes, perhaps in substandard working conditions. There may have been toxic waste from the factory. The shoes were transported, quite possibly from overseas, to a store or website where I found them.

If I need those shoes, that’s just how it works, but if I don’t really need them, then I am placing an undue burden on others.

The argument is often made that it is our duty as consumers to go out and buy things whether or not we really need them. This is supposed to help get the economy back on track. We hear variations of this concept everywhere; the idea that economic growth is essential turns up in the news constantly. But the assumption behind this way of thinking is that we live in a world of unlimited natural resources.

Besides being mindful of how many things we purchase, we can also pay attention to how the things we acquire have been made. To go back to shoes, if you go to a search engine and type in a phrase like “eco shoes” or “eco friendly shoes,” you will see a wide variety of choices. Many of the shoes will be made of cloth, and some websites will discuss how the workers who made the shoes were treated.

As I looked around the internet for eco shoes, I saw one pair that I liked. I clicked through to find out more about them, and was not pleased to discover that what seemed like an ordinary cloth loafer was priced just under one hundred dollars. At another shoe manufacturer, a similar loafer was $35 and their organic version of the same thing was $55. So you will have to make decisions comparing cost and ecological aspects, just as you do at the grocery store.

I am not suggesting that you own only one or two pairs of shoes or that your wardrobe should consist of only six items! Each of us has different needs, and we have to think about how we look at work as well as what we need for the different activities we do. But if each of us develops the habit of considering the effects of our purchases, this would be a better world.

For different people, the choices will be unique to their needs, attitudes, and personalities. That is as it should be. A friend of mine told me the other day that she had been harshly criticized, by someone who barely knew her, because she eats meat. To me, there is no benefit in “Who is greener?” competitions. It is more important that we each practice being true to our own sense of what is right.

This article came from: Live Simply That Others May Simply Live at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

So I lost myself in all that for a while.  I always love reading simple living tips from other people… I get more ideas that way. Think I will finally give away some of the cotton-polyester clothing in my closet that I wear about once a year, since I really prefer natural fibers.

Back to Zen Habits… There is so much there, that I was delighted to find Start Here on Leo Babauta’sminimalist Zen- style menu… that link takes you to the Beginner’s Guide to Zen Habits – A Guided Tour.  Here is part of it:

The All-Time Most Popular Posts on Zen Habits

1. 10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It
2. 20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life
3. Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life
4. The Cheapskate Guide: 50 Tips for Frugal Living
5. A Guide to Creating a Minimalist Home
6. 10 Tasty, Easy and Healthy Breakfast Ideas
7. 50 Ways to Be Romantic on the Cheap
8. 30 Things to Do to Keep From Getting Bored Out of Your Skull at Work
9. Get Off Your Butt: 16 Ways to Get Motivated When You’re in a Slump
10. Top 42 Exercise Hacks

Well, have fun! And don’t be surprised if some of his pages turn up sometime on this website… people are welcome to copy his writings if they want to. Very cool.

This article came from: Zen Habits: Website Review at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Financial strains, housing crisis, credit crunch,climate change, overconsumption, war, and a general malaise plague our  world, but what do they all have in common?

They are a consequence of a modern way of behaving that all too often excludes the simpler ways in life.

• How do we truly feel when we buy extra ‘things’ amidst store crowds in comparison to chatting and watching a sunset with people we love?
• Why are we more willing to spend time buying those lifeless objects instead of receiving a warm free hug?
• Have we been incorrectly programmed in some manner? How much is time sitting in a park listening to the birds really  worth?
• What products are truly life sustaining, and what is causing us stress?
• How have we lost our way and why?

The Audacity of Simplicity tackles these questions and more by revealing some of the very notions that defy a world of turmoil, decay, and unhappiness.

It asks us to walk in strength towards a more hopeful future that redefines progress and success as personal and social well-being, environmental stewardship, relationship-building, non-material growth, inner reflection, and social capital.

It envisions a caring humanity with shared emotions and a common destiny.

Tim Boston, DipSoSc, BA, MES, PhD
Author & Philosopher

Click on the book cover to find out more at Amazon:

How to Live a Simple Life is the subtitle of this timely book.

This article came from: The Audacity of Simplicity, a New Book by Tim Boston at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

• It’s way more work to make your own bread by hand than to buy a good whole grain loaf from a bakery or grocery store. (Now, with bread machines, this is less true!)
• It’s more time consuming to recycle… happily, this is less true now, but it certainly was then, when we had to drive our stuff to a recycling center that was only open on Saturdays.
• Shopping for all-cotton clothes and sheets may take more time than grabbing some part-synthetic items off the shelves.

But my friends and I found a satisfaction that made the extra time well spent.  There’s a feeling of being a part of our world that comes from gardening, for example. And by consuming less of our world’s resources, we were expressing a connection with the poorer people of the world.

One thing I noticed back then remains true today. One person’s simple living might be someone else’s nightmare. We each have to make our own choices.  For example, I realize that I am weird to most people in that I don’t like going to movies, would rather read or nowadays web-surf and be more with my own thoughts.

Someone else may need a more elaborate wardrobe than I do, because they go out to a “day job”  and  also because they are inherently more stylish than I am.  But I admit to buying and reading  far, far more books than most people.  (I am keeping my eye on the Kindle but so far I couldn’t download while I’m home in Mexico.)

So not only do the actions of a simple lifestyle often take more time, but also the decisions about what to do can require some thought. None of this is simple, but the satisfactions are great.

Now to go plant those seeds I didn’t get to on the weekend…

This article came from: Simple Living Isn’t Simple at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

I think it would also be useful to people trying to get by on less money, as it has so many tips on gardening, cooking, food preservation, raising animals, planting trees, and related topics. Certainly in suburbs and even in cities, people are finding ways to garden. This encyclopedia has always recommended a lot of other books, and the latest edition mentions a number of websites as well.

When I bought myself a new copy not long ago, I noticed that a reviewer at Amazon made the point that The Encyclopedia of Country Living is not the best book available on some of the specific topics it covers. For example, this afternoon I was browsing through the section on raising chickens, which is something I have done and might do again. Yes, there might be a better book on the subject, but it wouldn’t also be good on different ways of preserving food or on eco-safe household cleansing with low-cost ingredients. It’s the wide range of topics that makes this book so valuable. I hope not too many readers will need the short section on giving birth alone!

Carla Emery grew up in Montana and began writing this book during the back-to-the-land era, when she was living in a small town in Idaho with her husband and young children. It’s gone through edition after edition, getting larger and larger… the 10th edition is around 900 pages! She writes in a folksy style and includes many tips, ideas, recipes, and suggestions that other people sent to her.

This is one handy book on my reference shelf. What about you? Find out more at Amazon about:  The Encyclopedia of Country Living.

This article came from: The Encyclopedia of Country Living, by Carla Emery: A Review at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

But yeah… it matters.

It matters because of how I feel maybe as much as because of the actual energy quotient. There’s that inner gyroscope that shows me when I am balanced and when I am not. If I forget to take my bags to the market, I am less in harmony with the All. Somebody else might not have that connection in their personality, but I do, so it matters.

And so I’m coming back to this website, started almost three years ago, but not really anything more than a few pages till lately. Now I’m gearing up to make it one of my main on-going projects.

Do I really have anything to add to the conversations about green living, about simple living? I hope so. We’ll see. We cast longer shadows than we know. And maybe every little bit will help.

This article came from: Does Every Little Bit Help? at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

Simple living is a lot of fun.

I don’t think this aspect occurs to people until they have been involved in simple living for a while. Admittedly, going around changing all your light bulbs may not be the most fun you’ve had this week. It has its own rewards, of course, but fun isn’t the main one.
Personally, I like simple living because with fewer possessions and a smaller home to take care of, with a less hectic lifestyle, I have more time.

• More time to write — and for me, a day when I don’t get around to writing is a day with less life in it.
• More time to do my yoga stretches, morning walk, and prayer / meditation.
• More time to play badminton with my husband, in the evening just after the sun goes off the badminton setup in our yard.
• More time to really enjoy my friends… when they slow down enough!
• More time on the phone with my favorite family members, who live thousands of miles away.
• More time to cook from scratch.

More time, more fun…. and the simple green living lifestyle is better for our world.

This article came from: Simple Living is Fun! at SimpleGreenLiving.com..

There are so many things that you can do to change your lifestyle, a little bit… or a lot…

Anything you do helps us all. As modern physics shows us, we are all far more deeply interconnected than we have realized.

You may be — as I have been — overwhelmed or angry or not sure what matters the most. The purpose of this site is to help you choose what you can do to live more simply, what actions of yours can have the greatest beneficial effect on the planet.

It isn’t always what you think it will be. There are a lot of stereotypes and misconceptions out there. For example, recycling trash is certainly worthwhile but it is not going to save the planet. On the other hand, I think the world needs much more reasonable dialogue about how many children to have, if any.

The simple living movement has been around for decades, also often known as voluntary simplicity. The green component has always been there, but now many people who might not be drawn to simple living itself do care about green living.

Simple living, green living… not identical, but mostly overlapping. I write about both.

This article came from: Simple Living, Green Living at SimpleGreenLiving.com..