What kind of "stewardship" fits our emerging world? When we consider
the powerful forces transforming our world — climate change, peak oil,
water and food shortages, species extinction, and more — we require far
more than either crude or cosmetic changes in our manner of living. If
we are to maintain the integrity of the Earth as a living system, we
require deep and creative changes in our overall levels and patterns of
living and consuming.
Simplicity is not an alternative lifestyle
for a marginal few. It is a creative choice for the mainstream majority,
particularly in developed nations. If we are to pull together as a
human community, it will be crucial for people in affluent nations to
embrace a deep and sophisticated simplicity as a foundation for
sustainability.
Simplicity is simultaneously a personal choice, a community choice, a national choice, and a species choice.
What does a life of conscious simplicity look like? There is no
cookbook we can turn to with easy recipes for the simple life. The world
is moving into new territory and we are all inventing as we go. For
more than thirty years I've explored contemporary expressions of the
simple life and I've found such diversity that the most useful and
accurate way of describing this approach to living may be with the
metaphor of a garden.
A Garden of Simplicity
To portray the richness of simplicity, here are eight different
flowerings that I see growing in the "garden of simplicity." Although
there is overlap among them, each expression of simplicity seems
sufficiently distinct to warrant a separate category. These are
presented in no particular order, as all are important.
1. Uncluttered Simplicity:
Simplicity means taking
charge of lives that are too busy, too stressed, and too fragmented.
Simplicity means cutting back on clutter, complications, and trivial
distractions, both material and nonmaterial, and focusing on the
essentials — whatever those may be for each of our unique lives. As
Thoreau said, "Our life is frittered away by detail…. Simplify,
simplify." Or, as Plato wrote, "In order to seek one's own direction,
one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life."
2. Ecological Simplicity: Simplicity means choosing ways of
living that touch the Earth more lightly and that reduce our ecological
impact on the web of life. This life-path remembers our deep roots with
the soil, air, and water. It encourages us to connect with nature, the
seasons, and the cosmos. An ecological simplicity feels a deep
reverence for the community of life on Earth and accepts that the
nonhuman realms of plants and animals have their dignity and rights as
well.
3. Family Simplicity: Simplicity means placing the
well-being of one's family ahead of materialism and the acquisition of
things. This expression of green living puts an emphasis on providing
children with healthy role models living balanced lives that are not
distorted by consumerism. Family simplicity affirms that what matters
most in life is often invisible — the quality and integrity of our
relationships with one another. Family simplicity is also
intergenerational — it looks ahead and seeks to live with restraint so
as to leave a healthy Earth for future generations.
4. Compassionate Simplicity: Simplicity means feeling such a
strong sense of kinship with others that, as Gandhi said, we "choose to
live simply so that others may simply live." A compassionate
simplicity means feeling a bond with the community of life and being
drawn toward a path of cooperation and fairness that seeks a future of
mutually assured development for all.
5. Soulful Simplicity: Simplicity means approaching life as a
meditation and cultivating our experience of direct connection with all
that exists. By living simply, we can more easily awaken to the living
universe that surrounds and sustains us, moment by moment. Soulful
simplicity is more concerned with consciously tasting life in its
unadorned richness than with a particular standard or manner of
material living. In cultivating a soulful connection with life, we tend
to look beyond surface appearances and bring our interior aliveness
into relationships of all kinds.
6. Business Simplicity: Simplicity means that a new kind of
economy is growing in the world, with healthy and sustainable products
and services of all kinds (home-building materials, energy systems, food
production, transportation). As the need for a sustainable
infrastructure in developing nations is being combined with the need to
retrofit and redesign the homes, cities, workplaces, and transportation
systems of developed nations, it is generating an enormous wave of
green business innovation and employment.
7. Civic Simplicity: Simplicity means that living more
lightly and sustainably on the Earth requires changes in every area of
public life — from public transportation and education to the design of
our cities and workplaces. The politics of simplicity is also a media
politics, as the mass media are the primary vehicle for reinforcing — or
transforming — the mass consciousness of consumerism. To realize the
magnitude of changes required in such a brief time will require new
approaches to governing ourselves at every scale.
8. Frugal Simplicity: Simplicity means that, by cutting back
on spending that is not truly serving our lives, and by practicing
skillful management of our personal finances, we can achieve greater
financial independence. Frugality and careful financial management
bring increased financial freedom and the opportunity to more
consciously choose our path through life. Living with less also
decreases the impact of our consumption upon the Earth and frees
resources for others.
As these eight approaches illustrate, the growing culture of
simplicity contains a flourishing garden of expressions whose great
diversity — and intertwined unity — are creating a resilient and hardy
ecology of learning about how to live more sustainable and meaningful
lives. As with other ecosystems, it is the diversity of expressions that
fosters flexibility, adaptability, and resilience. Because there are so
many pathways into the garden of simplicity, this self-organizing
movement has enormous potential to grow....
The Choice for Simplicity
The circle has closed. The Earth is a single system and we humans
have reached beyond its regenerative capacity. It is of the highest
urgency that we invent new ways of living that are sustainable. The
starting gun of history has already gone off and the time for creative
action has arrived. With lifestyles of conscious simplicity, we can seek
our riches in caring families and friendships, reverence for nature,
meaningful work, exuberant play, social contribution, collaboration
across generations, local community, and creative arts. With conscious
simplicity, we can seek lives that are rich with experiences,
satisfaction, and learning rather than packed with things. With these
new ingredients in the lives of our civilizations, we can redefine
progress, awaken a new social consciousness, and establish a realistic
foundation for a sustainable and promising future.
Excerpted with permission from Duane Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich.
Copyright © 2010 by Duane Elgin. Published by Harper.
Reprinted with permission. The Center for Ecoliteracy where this article originally appeared, supports and advances education for sustainable living. You can follow its work at www.twitter.com/ecoliteracy. Duane Elgin is an internationally recognized speaker and author. His books include The Living Universe
, Promise Ahead
, and Awakening Earth
.
He received the international Goi Peace Award in recognition of his
contribution to a global "vision, consciousness, and lifestyle" that
fosters a "more sustainable and spiritual culture."
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