Simple Living

There are two facets of the work ethic. The first facet is hard work. The second facet is simple living.

Simple living means doing without things you don't need. Our culture has produced material abundance, but this has also produced what is known as "affluenza." This is where people find themselves unsatisfied with buying things, yet they keep on buying shit which leads to less and less satisfaction. The Left is fond of this term as justification for a neo-Bolshevik agenda. I will now deal with it from a more free market friendly perspective.

Hard work plus thrift yields wealth. This is what the Puritans believed, and this is why they became wealthy. Simple living means living well below your means. Since you habitually spend less than you earn, you amass cash which leads to savings and investment and peace of mind. People who work little and spend with the help of debt reverse this paradigm and reap the negative consequences.

How much stuff is enough? The answer to that is pretty simple. You only need one house, one car, food to eat, enough clothes to cover your ass for two weeks, one computer, one TV, etc. Everyone has different needs, so I am not advocating a one-size-fits-all prescription. But when it comes to lifestyle, less really is more.

The great insight of Epicurus was in discovering and articulating just how little it took to have a happy life. This insight is rearticulated by the current proponents of minimalist living such as Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. You don't need a bunch of stuff to enjoy life. In fact, having a lot of stuff diminishes the enjoyment of life.

There are certain mindsets that I find inimical to the simple living concept. Here is a list:

1. The Status Game

This is the old keeping up with the Joneses routine. If your neighbor buys a Lexus, then you need to have a Mercedes. People who are status conscious can never be satisfied because there is always someone out there with a more expensive car, a bigger house, more houses, etc. Yet, the irony is when these status conscious folks envy those with simple lifestyles because they yearn for less stress and more cash in their bank accounts.

2. Toys, toys, toys.

People ask me why I don't play golf, and I have a simple answer. I can't afford it. Actually, I can, but pleading poverty saves me an argument. The reality is that I don't care to spend money on a game I don't care to play. Most golfers are just people acquiring clubs to rust in the garage. The same thing can be applied to almost any other leisure activity requiring the purchase of toys. I think boats, RVs, ATVs, motorcycles, exercise machines, and the rest are just a colossal waste. Most of this shit either winds up in storage or on sale in someone's front yard on Craigslist.

3. Clutterbuggery

These are people who can't throw shit away. You can see examples of these folks on Hoarders. They have an inability to part with any possession no matter how trivial it is. They cling to shit. This might seem like thrifty behavior, but it isn't. Maintaining a hoard requires resources. It eats up space, and actually leads to overspending because it takes less time to buy a new thing than to try and search for the old thing. Decluttering is an essential part of simple living. Throw away the shit you don't need.

It takes discipline to live simply. It means saying no to stuff you don't need. It means ignoring commercials and infomercials. Above all, it means accepting how rich your life already is.

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