What Is Simple Living?
There is one serious lifestyle change that will change your entire life for the better, by magnitudes you didn’t imagine possible. Its called simple living.
You should strategically implement simple living in your life, especially if you’re like most people and live a ridiculously busy and complicated life.
One thing you will realize when you start implementing simple living is, by becoming a minimalist you will actually become a maximalist.
Simple living will bring you maximum fulfillment because you will be cutting out material and mental clutter, this will enable you to have more free time to think and just be, which will result in a big increase in your awareness level.
Someone with a ridiculously busy lifestyle full of clutter isn’t living a fulfilled life. They are living like a zombie going through the motions. They are living neurotic life.
You should live like a Spartan from the Roman times, they idealized simple living. They understood that living a simple life is conducive to self-actualization.
Don’t mistake busy for fulfilled. Its impossible to be a mindful conscious person when you are living a fast pace life with your pedal always to the metal.
With simple living you are essentially deliberately and strategically trying to significantly slow down your lifestyle. You want to focus more on being, rather than doing.
Doing = A state of mind of accomplishing goals or objectives. Your mind is fixated on the past and what to do now in the present to change or accomplish something in the future.
Being = Being is when you are completely focused on the present mode, you are fully in the moment, you have no objectives or biases. This allows you to be fully present and aware of whatever is here, right now.
Jack, but if I start living the simple living lifestyle isn’t that counter productive to everything you preach? How will I become successful if I focus on being rather than doing?
I’m going to let you in on something, you can actually be in a state of being as you are doing stuff, as long as you don’t let your mind run rampant. You only want to be fixated on the present moment.
Now it is perfectly okay to be in the state of doing, you should also do a some doing in your life so that you can set and accomplish goals. After you strategically set your goals , you can be in the state of being as you are working towards accomplishing your goals. Your life will be much less neurotic. You wont be full of stress and anxiety.
The thing you should remember is this: when you are doing, you are doing and sacrificing being so that later you will be able to live a life full of being.
This is true, I am only 28 years old and now I am able to be, so much more than ever before. A big reason is because I don’t have a job that I am enslaved to. When I’m working on my blog I am in the state of being, I’m super passionate when I create content. I am in the present moment 100 percent (typing this on a beautiful Caribbean beach sure does help).
You see, by doing a lot for a couple years I have set up my entire future to be able to be in a state of being much more, I have freed myself. That’s why I preach often about starting a blog or dropshipping business. Thanks to the power of the internet you can free yourself as well. There are just so many resources that can help you reach freedom nowadays that it would be a shame if you didn’t take advantage of them.
By making money online passively the way that I do, it enables me to live the simple living lifestyle to the fullest. I was able to slow my life down significantly.
What does this mean? I do half of the activities I used to do when I had a regular 9-5 job. Also, whenever I do anything I do it slower. When I go visit my grandparents and eat lunch with them, I do it for twice as long. By doing this I started to become much more mindful of the moment, I started appreciating life and the moment so much more. I have a new-found gratitude for life.
How To Achieve Simple Living
#1) Start visualizing yourself living a simple minimalist lifestyle
Clear your mind, close your eyes, and start deeply visualizing how your life would be like if you were living the simple living lifestyle. Imagine yourself living a much slower life. visualize yourself cutting out many of your activities and relationships. Imagine yourself saying no to new relationships and activities.
If you are already somewhat wise you will start to feel a sense of relief, a sense of peacefulness. You can start to understand why you will feel much more fulfilled.
If you are on the total opposite spectrum from simple living you might get a sense of negativity, a sense of fear. This is normal, you are addicted to stimulation, you are addicted to the fast pace life. For you adopting simple living will be like an acquired taste, you just have to working towards it.
#2) Throw away all unnecessary material objects
To embody simple living you must start getting rid of the material things you don’t need, so stop hoarding shit.
Getting rid of all your clutter will give you a sense of relief. Less clutter means less headaches, and much more. For effective simple living I recommend cutting out at least 50% of your material things, that’s how much I cut out for myself and I couldn’t be happier.
Benefits of throwing away unnecessary material objects:
- Less headaches
- Less distractions
- Sense of relief
- Less stress
- Become more unattached to material things
- Thinking becomes clearer
- Multi-task less and more focused on task at hand
- Less overwhelmed
#3) Slow down the pace of your life
After get rid of most of your material things you should focus on significantly slowing down the pace of your life.
Stop running around like a hamster on a wheel, your life will pass you by quicker without you appreciating life moment by moment. The state of doing doesn’t bring true happiness, its stimulation disguised as happiness, it’s just a dopamine rush.
I know it sounds like woo-woo new age bullshit, but when you are always in a state of doing, you are depriving yourself from getting to know yourself, if that makes any sense. You can’t connect to yourself. True story, I knew somebody who lived a ridiculously fast pace life, she told me that she can’t be alone, she can’t eat alone and that its weird to eat alone. Does that sound like a happy person? That’s a miserable existence.
Hi mom and dad, ok let’s grab a bite to eat really quick, lets hurry though, I got to leave soon. Does this sound familiar? If this is you more often than not you definitely need to slow the pace of your life down, you are missing out on the finer things in life and you are not truly fulfilled.
To embody simple living I recommend slowing down the pace of your life by 50%. When you have plans with people try to double the length of your activities.
Basically, everything you do, you are going to do it slower. When you use the bathroom and eat breakfast, take twice as long. It sounds counterproductive but trust me it’s not. Life is not about efficiency, stop trying to be a robot because robots don’t feel fulfillment.
Slow down your movements, walk and talk slower. Slow down your breathing, this is a big one as you will become more relaxed and less neurotic.
#4) Cut down mental clutter
If you are going to obtain simple living, this is huge for you. You HAVE to cut down mental clutter. Mental clutter is anything that makes your life busier and more complicated.
You should cut down the amount of friends you have and the amount of activities to participate in by 50%. You don’t have to cut out the people your closest with, cut out acquaintances. Don’t cry about it, they don’t truly love and care about you.
You don’t have to cut out every single activity you enjoy, just cut out some of them. Besides, cutting out some activities will enable you to focus more on the activities you are truly passionate about.
If you are a very fast pace person who has tons of friends and are always doing something, this will be hard for you, but just cut out one person at a time from your life. Remember that in doing so you will form closer bonds with your close friends. You’ll have fewer friends, however, you’ll have deeper more satisfying relationships.
Think of mental clutter like you would a computer hard drive. The more space taken up, the more your computer acts up. The more mental clutter in your life, the more neurotic you will be. You must lesson your clutter.
#5) Learn to say no NO
In order for you to actually change your lifestyle and accomplish simple living, you have to learn to say no. This is necessary because your friends are going to ask you to go out with them, to have a drink with them, etc,. If you don’t know how to say no you will get stuck living a very fast pace complicated life, so grow a backbone and start saying no.
If you suck at saying no the best way to improve your backbone and become stronger is by actually saying the word no more often, I know shockingly obvious. The more you say it the more desensitized you will become. Just stay patient and persistent. You will be able to say no without feeling anything in no time. No pun intended.
Saying no when necessary will also benefit you in other ways. You will become stronger and respect yourself more.
Conclusion
Simple living comes down to you cutting all the bullshit out.
Whatever you don’t really need, throw it out. Whoever you don’t really need, throw them out. It’s that simple.
If you live in the fast lane this will be an like acquired taste. Keep in mind that even though you are living a busy fast life it doesn’t completely fulfill you, you feel an empty void. Simple living will help you find the joy that you are seeking in life.
Its counter-intuitive but the seeking is the problem. Seeking is doing, and doing distracts you from being. Can you grasp the significance of this? I hope you can.
Until next time,
-Jack Freeman
Juhani says
Your blog is another mine gold I have found. Good contents. Good shits.
Were you one of Bold & Determined’s readers? It is the damn mesmerizing Genesis Theme and contents about self-improvement stuffs just remind me of him. I also have a blogging site just has been started, and still sloppy slacking shit – def gonna keep improving it.
Anyway, keep posting high quality contents!
Jack Freeman says
Juhani, thanks! I actually was a reader of his earlier posts