I’ve talked to my friends regarding my choice to live a lifestyle of Voluntary Simplicity and over and over I get the same question:

“What really is Voluntary Simplicity anyway?”

That’s a good question – and not an easy one to answer. Some of the questions I have heard are:

Does Voluntary Simplicity mean I can’t have a car?

Does it mean I have to learn how to be a miser?

Do I have to live an austere lifestyle like a monk?

Does it mean I can’t travel?

Does it mean I can’t eat out at restaurants or go to plays and movies?

Does it mean I have to go live in a cabin out in the woods without electricity or running water?

Do I have to get rid of all my stuff?

It can be all, any or none of the above. To me, Simple Living means living purposefully. It means truly opening your eyes and living your life now, not soaring along through life at supersonic speed like an automated robot. Rather, living purposefully means being wholly aware of the present, aware of what we’re doing at the moment and making conscious choices in our life.

Living purposefully allows us to stop for a moment and examine what we want to do with our lives. It means deciding whether we need to follow the same route as most people because this is how society defines success. Awhile back, turned down an employment opportunity at a corporate financial firm making close to twice the amount of money that I’m presently earning. My friends thought I had suddenly gone insane. But I didn’t want to work the excessive hours that the position demanded (55 to 65 hours a week was expected) and come home every night stressed-out and exhausted. But rather, I purposefully decided that I would prefer to have that extra time to travel, spend time with my friends and family, relax, meditate, write, or read the ever growing number of books that line my bookshelves demanding my attention.

I decided that I would not trade the only true valuable asset that I have for the pursuit of money – my time. Once that time is gone, we can never get it back. Rather than rush mindlessly to an overloaded work schedule, I decided that it is more important to me to have the time to read, to contemplate, to nourish my inner soul. Living purposefully is about finding that balance between our need for satisfying work, spending time with friends and family, and feeling that we are truly living.

Living purposefully also means slowing down and examining the choices we have made. If you enjoy traveling and want to see the world, it means consciously deciding to give up something in order to achieve your dreams. Think of the trips you could take if you decided to forgo buying that $20,000 car! Would you rather have a closet full of brand new clothes or visit Paris in the springtime? You could decide that you want a big impressive house. By making that choice, you have also chosen to work many more hours at your job for many years to finance it.

Voluntary Simplicity is all about choices. There are no hard and fast rules about how to live a simple life (I tend to make up my own rules as I go along). What is important, is that you live the life you want to live, doing the things that you enjoy. If you love to eat out at fancy restaurants, then by all means do so! I have personally chosen to forgo such activities – not only to save my waistline, but so that I can easily afford to travel several times a year. Travel is one of the things on my list of important things in my life – your list will most likely be different than mine. What is important in the pursuit of living a simple life – of living purposefully – is sitting down to examine your priorities and deciding what is important to you in life.

Don’t worry if you change your mind later – I do it all the time.
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