Living a simple life is about paring back so that you have space to breathe. It’s about doing with less because you realize that having more and doing more doesn’t lead to happiness. It’s about finding joys in the simple things, and being content with solitude, quiet, contemplation, and savoring the moment.
I’ve learned some key lessons for living a simple life, and I thought I’d share a few with you.
All the stress, all the frustrations, and disappointments, all the busyness and rushing—we create these with attachments in our heads. By letting go, we can relax and live more simply.
For example, if you are attached to sentimental items, you won’t be able to let go of clutter. If you are attached to living a certain way, you will not be able to let go of a lot of stuff. If you are attached to doing a lot of activities and messaging everyone, your life will be complex.
We don’t need any of these habits, but they build up over the years because they comfort us. We can live more simply by letting go of these mental habits. What would life be like without constant switching, distraction, and busyness?
Imagine that everything you do—a work task, answering an email or message, washing a dish, reading an article—goes into full-screen mode so that you don’t do or look at anything else. You just inhabit that task fully and are fully present as you do it. What would your life be like? In my experience, it’s much less stressful when you work and live this way. Things get your full attention, and you do them much better. And you can even savor them.
Add padding to everything. Do half of what you imagine you can do. We tend to cram as much as possible into our days. This becomes stressful because we always underestimate how long things will take. We forget about maintenance tasks like putting on clothes and brushing teeth and preparing meals.
For me, those include writing, reading/learning, walking and doing other active things, eating simple food, meditating, spending quality time with people I care about. Most of that doesn’t cost anything or require any possessions (especially if you use the library for books). I’m not saying I have zero possessions, nor that I only do these few things, but to the extent that I remember the simple things I love doing, my life suddenly becomes simpler. When I remember, I can let go of everything else my mind has fixated on, and find the simple joy of doing simple activities.
We are rarely very clear on what we want. When we see someone post a photo of something cool, we might suddenly fixate on doing that too, and the course of our lives veer off in a new direction. Same thing if we read about something cool, or watch a video of a new destination or hobby.
If we knew what we wanted to create, how we wanted to live, we could say yes to these things, and no to everything else. Saying no to more things would simplify our lives.
How often do we actually do nothing? OK, technically we’re always “doing something,” but you know what I mean—just sit there and do nothing. No need to plan, no need to read, no need to watch something. Just don’t do anything. Don’t accomplish anything, don’t take care of anything.
Of course, these are not the only lessons you’ll need for living a simple life. But the best ones are the ones you discover yourself. Try these and see what happens—I think you’ll find something beautiful about yourself, and about life.
The best kind of simplicity is that which exposes the raw beauty, joy, and heartbreak of life as it is.
