Let's talk about simplicity?
What it is, and what it's not — clue, it has nothing to do with style.
Better Home: Better Health with Michelle Ogundehin — helping you harness the power of home, your fast track to health, healing, happiness
I have been re-reading the work of Duane Elgin, an American speaker and author who wrote a book called Voluntary Simplicity, first published in 1981. It was revised and updated in 2010, which must have been when I bought it. Elgin’s premise advocates a way of life that’s outwardly simple but inwardly rich. The voluntary bit being important as it represents a choice, not the enforced simplicity of poverty foisted upon many in the world. But it’s also absolutely not a lifestyle.
To reduce the notion of simplicity to a style would be to imply that it’s something superficial, a fad or fashion. Rather, the simplicity that Elgin evokes, and the simplicity I inspire towards with the forthcoming publication of Simple Inside, is a simplicity that cuts through the trivial to find the essential. A simplicity that has you asking yourself, how much is enough? One that recognises the Earth as a finite resource that we must stop depleting. To paraphrase Elgin, it is focused on regenerative rather than exploitive consumption.
As Mary Portas put it in a recent newsletter, “Consumer culture has dined out on tickling our collective anxiety for more-because-its-never-enough for decades and, let’s face it, we brand-builders and desire-makers have done a bloody good job at helping create that culture.”
She continues, “But we are waking up from that unseeing acceptance of success. That constant, gnawing fear of lack is now being replaced by something far deeper and, actually, more human – the fear of loss. Loss of us, our loved ones, our world. There isn’t one of us who doesn’t feel it. We’re scared. More isn’t best, we know that. It can’t be anymore. This is the personal and social narrative flooding our psyches. And it’s translating into how we want to buy. We still want to buy, course we do. But less. Better. And more consciously.”
In Elgin’s latest book, Choosing Earth (which he’s sharing for free as a PDF download), he revisits his Voluntary Simplicity theme, and echoes Mary’s words, exposing how our consumer-oriented societies have exploited our global resources for the benefit of a fraction of humanity. As he puts it, “The goal of this approach has been to find happiness through consumption and to satisfy our material wants without conscious regard for the needs of a livable Earth.” It’s a self-serving approach that’s bringing us to the brink of collapse. Something has to change. He posits the following, “Instead of asking what we humans want (what we desire, crave, or hunger for), we are being called to respond to a far more important question: what does the overall ecology of life need (what is essential, basic, necessary) to build a regenerative future for the Earth?”
And therein lies the definition of simplicity: what is essential, basic, necessary.
But this does not mean that you cannot surround yourself with colour, pattern, joy and ornamentation! In fact I insist that you do, in whatever ways, forms or hues that work for you. To surround yourself with things that you love is the very heart of my home health philosophy. However this does not come from rushing out to buy a whole new stack of artful objets with the intention of creating a simple ‘look’.
Rather, it is about intentionality. Buying with purpose. Buying mindfully because we understand that every single purchase we make advocates for that brand to stay in business. When we buy something, we need to ask ourselves, what pathway to the future is this supporting? What stand am I making for life on earth? Because make no mistake, it’s time to own where we’ve found ourselves and be the change.
For me, being increasingly mindful of my purchasing habits has meant asking myself the following eight questions every time I feel an urge to splurge…