Living a Simpler Life

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Balancing Kids, Work and Everything Else

I've daydreamed that simplifying -- buying less stuff, clearing the clutter, getting rid of the car -- might be the secret to a saner life. Voluntary simplicity is as old as Henry David Thoreau, but we're reading more and more about people trying it. Critics dismiss it as a movement for people with money. After all, if you are thinking of getting rid of stuff that means you've got a lot of stuff in the first place. Is the idea of living more simply just a gimmick or have you and your family taken steps to try it?

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You may find this article from the BBC website interesting. It talks about how materialism has been shown in studies to be damaging to children. Here is the URL:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7262936.stm

I am going through a sort of enforce minimalising period as we are going to be moving from the UK to the US, so virtually all of our electrical equipment is useless and the cost of shipping is making me sell, give away or throw away several boxes of "stuff". I thought I would hate this. However, I find that our lives are in fact more harmonious and we seem to have room to breathe. The children have less toys and so spend more time playing with the ones they have and not flitting from one thing to another. There attention span seems improved and they are not the only ones (I have actually finished 4 knitting projects!). The atmosphere is far more relaxed.
I can't promise this minimalism will last when we move, as families and collecting seem to go hand-in-hand ,but it is indeed an interesting experiment!
Emma

We're the only family I know without cell phones. My husband and I work from home. We paid off our home in ten years and we drive old cars. Certainly there are families that need two incomes, but I think that people could use quite a bit of introspection and then realize the stress they feel is related to how much they're overworked trying to stay where they're at.

Simplified life is essential to true happiness and being able to maintain a career and provide for the emotional and spiritual needs of our family. It is for everyone who has grown to the point of recognizing joy and contentment come from deep within in, while happiness is based on happenings, which are exernal. We can spin our wheels going from one happening to another and sill not be content.

Simplifying means ordering our environment in a manner that is easy to maintain, thereby freeing us to invest our tme and emotions in what is really important - God, spouse, children, extended family, and friends. The primary resonsibility for a parent is to provide for the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of our children.

Most indiviuals interested in the GS forum highly value their children and want to equip them to succeed at the "game of life". I have been a "messie" all of my life, and am very committed to "overcoming" my tendencies, and training my children to lead a clutter free life of order, and to filter every decsion in life through their personal value system regardless of what others are doing.

A great resource for this journey is Sandra Felton, author and founder of Messies Annonymous www.messies.com. Everyone can benefit from her insights whether you are a "cleanie" a "messie", or anywhere in between. You can purchase her books very reasonably, at www.half.com.

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