Why Simplify?

The most obvious reason for choosing a simplified life - having little money - is not the real reason why one should embrace the simple life. By being frugal and smart many people manage to turn their financial problems around and eventually find themselves with greater cashflow. Being careful with money will pay those kind of dividends - especially if you ally them with working overtime, or getting an second job, selling off stuff you don't need etc. But living frugally just to get out of debt or get over a period of cash shortage is to miss the point of what simple living is all about. Over this and the next few posts I'm going to list some of the reasons why I think living simply makes sense and why one should adopt this voluntarily

Things cannot make you happy! Well, of course that's true - even a moron knows that! We all know this intellectually but yet the whole of Western Capitalist society is built on the fantasy the more, newer and shinier things we have, the happier we will be. The entire Advertising industry channels its energies not into selling products but into selling dreams - buy this product and you will be more attractive, successful, have a happier family life etc and not just the owner of a lipstick, a computer or a car. The constant search for more stuff is futile and we waste our lives doing jobs we don't like to buy stuff we hope will fulfill our fantasies but never can. If wealth and possessions were what it took to make you happy then Michael Jackson, Bill Gates, Donald Trump and any other members of the ludicrously wealthy super-rich would live lives of untroubled peace and fulfillment. If you've ever seen them on the TV you'll know that they are no happier than the rest of us and, frequently, a lot more discontented.

The pursuit of wealth or even financial stability is a waste of time. Once you got stuff, you gotta protect it from thieves, from accidents, from decay - even then you eventually lose interest and have to get something newer and more interesting or more fashionable. Nothing lasts and you can't take any of it with you when you die - why waste your time amassing stuff that will only be a burden or you will only take no notice of after a while?

Nothing outside of yourself can be relied upon to bring you stable happiness (that goes for people as well as things). Everything and everyone changes. Happiness lies in appreciating what you have now - however little that is - not in something that will be attained at some undesignated point in the future. If you want to be happy - stop searching for happiness and realise how blessed your life is already. Believe me - it is the only way! Take time to enjoy and develop those aspects of your present existence which delight you and cut out those aspects which get in the way of your enjoyment.