One of my favourite Chinese proverbs is “Make yourself empty to make it fuller.”. If you want to make yourself to have free and valuable life, you need to simplify your lifestyle. Possessing too many things will restrain your life from long-lasting enjoyment and freedom of choices. It will limit your freedom, especially financial liberty and force you to do what you don’t wish to do all your life. Do you really want to spend all your life at work to get more ‘THINGS’ which is not necessary or live frugally to get more time for yourself and your family? Simple living is your voluntary lifestyle choice that can offer you abundance of happiness and freedom.
Before I start talking about how to live simple, I have to make sure that simple living needs to be separated from living poor. It involves people’s satisfactory in their life with what they need rather than what they wish for. Simple living is not a difficult task to do or strangle youself to feel poor. Instead of buying a luxurious car or goods to satisfy your short pleasure, book a budget trip for your family for a lifelong memories. Instead of buying a big/new house with massive mortgage which will keep you at work longer and away from your family, buy a reasonable house so you can enjoy time more with your family. I have to tell you that I am not still fully satisfied on my progress of simple living but the more important thing is I do realize that I have more than I need at the moment and I am willing to simplify my lifestyle.
As I promised earlier, let’s talk about how to make our precious life simpler and more enjoyable.
1. Buy what you really need not what you want. We all have an undeniable craving on new things, good looking things and attractive things but simply we cannot have all what we want to have . There is always personal/ financial limit on consumption so do not over or stretch the limit. Try to live below your limit. Quite often we can hear about high flyers’ bankruptcy. Even though they earned big money but they lived over their financial boundary. How to spend or save is more important than how to make money. Think more whether you really need the item or not before you buy.
2. Do regular cleanup. Check regularly what you have and what you need before you purchase. Everyone would experience that we often buy same or similar stuff without knowledge that we already have them. While I was clearing my wardrobe, I was stunned that how many similar items I have and some of them were rarely used. Knowing what you have clearly will help you to stop buying extra stuff you don’t need.
3. Be yourself and love yourself as who you are. What you have or what you wear wouldn’t verify who you truly are. Keep yourself free from the imaginary perspective that others will value you based on what you have or what you wear. Some of my friends keep buying brand new luxurious cars to show off which would easily bring down their bank account to the bottom or even to minus. Frankly, I see them with full of sympathy. Be yourself and show yourself as you are instead of disguising yourself by non-necessarily expensive stuff.
4. Don’t work for your belongings. Our possessions are supposed to be used for us and our life but unfortunately quite often we are being used for having the belongings. If you need to work more or spend more energy to have the things means you cannot afford to have them so don’t buy them. When you have things you can’t afford may offer you short term pleasure but unquestionably will reward you with financial burden. Highly unlikely you can enjoy your life under the financial difficulties.
5. Life is full of choices and your choice can change your future. Remind yourself opportunity cost you have to pay for instead. If you buy posh furniture and electronic gadgets without considering your financial situation while you are renting, you may lose/delay a change to save deposit for your dreamed house. If you spend a lot of money for a high class holiday, you may lose your opportunities to travel more times which you wish for. Think what is better option for your future and limit your current spending.
6. Compare real value. You cannot live without purchasing things and I don’t think that is the way to live a simple life. Main point is being wise on your purchasing and being realistic on your situation. If you need to get things, find out the real value of the goods. Don’t pay more than their true value. Be diligent to find out the real value of the goods. Internet offers you enormous power to find, check and compare anything you want. Why do you pay more for the same thing when you have to spend your precious life at work to pay?
7. Look for the ways to simplify your life style. As I told you, I am a beginner on simple living as you are so I do need to know more practical ideas or skills to carry on simple living. You will be surprised how many people are trying and already proficient on simple living if you search them (a lot of blogs on the web). Learn the techniques from them which are suit for you. While you apply the techniques into your lifestyle, the attitude toward to your life will be also changed and you will enjoy the pleasure of lightness.
Don’t push yourself too hard to transfer your lifestyle in a short time. Take a time and change step by step. One of main points to have a simple life is achieving a stress free/less life so relax and enjoy the process of the journey to simple living. I have still a lot of things to go through and I can’t wait to do that (I feel so good!).
