Well, to answer that we must define “life”, which is simply the lived existence that any animal has led on this planet we call Earth, Prithvi, Gaea, etc. It is the time that you spend living, being you.
And so it follows that:
A “simple life” is simply your “life” in its most essential. It is only undertaking activities that really matter to you.
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| Photo by Ben White on Unsplash |
Remember, we defined life as “the time that you spend living, being you.” Every task you do is literally an expenditure of said time. Thus, a simple life is one that helps limit that expenditure to endeavours of highest quality.
But what is quality?
For those interested in philosophy, Robert M. Pirsig — the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — has written about the metaphysics of quality. But for others, the concept of “endeavours of highest quality” can be grasped intuitively — these are undertakings that bring you maximum joy, maximum satisfaction. These are things you do that make your life worth living, things which get you into the “flow state”. For example, doing kitesurfing, playing any sport, reading a thrilling book, walking in nature, being around friends.
Thus, a simple life is one of highest quality. To create a life of high quality, we must recognize that our lives contain experiences, encounters and events of low quality. Some of these low quality endeavours are essential or enjoyable, but a majority of them are not. And the process to create a simple life starts right there — by the elimination of everything from your life without which you don’t lose any meaning. For example, for me it is to do with not going partying, not attending events which I don’t care about, not spending too much time on buying unnecessary goods, not watching television or movies, minimising my time around people I do not like, etc. This lets me focus my time on activities that I enjoy the most such as reading interesting books, exercising and writing this blog.
Once these unnecessary and boring tasks are eliminated, we can try to look at everything else that remains. Ideally, everything else that remains are all enjoyable or essential. Make sure to prioritize on the basis of necessity and not fun, though. The inessential fun activities might be useful to keep as a luxury in case you have surplus time on your hand some day.
The not so fun but important chores and duties on your list (such as work or study) would still need to get done, especially in the short term. These tasks, even though they may not bring direct enjoyment, may still be able to give your life meaning and purpose. They might also be a source of income and wealth creation which can give you longer term freedom (a topic for another day).
What you can do though is to change the way you do these. Some suggested questions to think about include:
What is it about these activities that you don’t enjoy exactly?
Is there anything you can change or do to make them enjoyable?
Can you make them simpler?
Can you delegate it to others who can do them for you?
Once you answer these questions, you can start changing these low quality yet essential tasks into high quality ones — this transformation can literally change your life!
There is a lot of material out there that can help the interested reader achieve this in a more actionable way. The following link is just a drop in the massive ocean of tricks, tools and techniques to help simplify your life (I am in no way connected to the website) but one that I found useful.
Until next time!
Sukhi
Originally posted on medium: https://medium.com/@sukhiahlu/1-simple-living-b7fa3106e50e
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