Simplicity, the Heart of Humanity

7 spiritual Principles that guide my life, Simplicity is one of the most interesting, and also the one that students sometimes find most puzzling. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that Simplicity means hardship or extreme austerity.  A number of people have given up a comfortable lifestyle for a life in a remote wilderness living off the land: for some it has been a preferred choice for life while for others the rigours proved to much and they were forced to return to the materialistic life they had left behind, often with a sense of failure. Simplicity is not, for most of us, about returning to the lifestyle of our ancestors, but concerns our attitude to “things” and money, and living according to what we need and not what we desire. It is about being rather than doing, and about experience rather than trappings. Because so often my advocacy of Simplicity has gone unheeded or been misunderstood, I was encouraged to come across a new book that argues persuasively for simpler living. “Stuffocation (Living More with Less)” by James Wallman explores the crisis of material consumption that afflicts so many of us, in which we have so many possessions they have become a burden, and we live and work just in order to have more of them. His research proves that it is bad for our health, and disastrous for the planet. As Wallman says, Simplicity is more than de-cluttering, important though that is. By shifting our emphasis from having or acquiring what we don’t need to one of ensuring that everything we have is used, useful and valued; by seeing how much less money we need if we are not spending it unnecessarily; by seeing we need only work to the extent that is needed to support our simpler lifestyle; by spending our time and money on being with friends, helping others, living life, exploring the world, seeing the experience in every moment – we are helping ourselves and our Planet enormously.  Simplicity cannot co-exist with conflict. Simplicity is the heart of humanity, and from Simplicity can come peace on Earth.   [byline]  ]]>