Dealing With Stuff
  • Dealing With Stuff
  • About
  • Contact

Minimalism vs. Voluntary Simplicity

8/23/2016

 
Picture
​Last week, I attended a discussion session on voluntary simplicity. It arrested my attention and made me realize that the disciplines of voluntary simplicity and minimalism do not always overlap. The mindset of one will not always be the mindset of the other. Often, the two lifestyles are indistinguishable, but at other times, they may diverge and bring different results.

Voluntary simplicity revolves around mindfulness, environmental sustainability, and frugality. Simple living may be motivated by a rejection of materialism and our modern style of hyper-consumption. There can be an element of solidarity with the majority of the world who do not have access to First World luxuries.

Minimalism involves focusing on only those elements of life that offer maximum value. It is connected to movements in art, music, and literature. For some, the attraction to a minimalist lifestyle is as much about a design sensibility as it is about consumption patterns.

Simple living might mean gardening, canning one's own produce, and keeping bees, chickens, and/or goats as a way of living closer to nature, lowering the carbon footprint, connecting with neighbors, and slowing down to a pre-Industrial pace. Minimalism might mean selling one's house and living as a nomad, traveling the world with nothing but a laptop and a backpack.

Simple living might mean meditating and purposefully creating downtime, with the aim of allowing space for rambling conversations, appreciating quiet moments, and finding peace of mind. Minimalism might mean working around the clock, immersing oneself in a passion project to the exclusion of all else.

Simple living might include stacks of used paperbacks. Minimalism might mean a series of e-books.

Simple living might involve riding a bicycle. Minimalism might involve relying on a car-sharing service.

Simple living might involve cases of canning jars, a woodworking shop, or hand-knitted socks. Minimalism might involve giving those tools away in the process of downsizing or relocating to another continent.

Both voluntary simplicity and minimalism agree on a rejection of clutter, shallow relationships, debt, long commutes, and working at an unsatisfying job merely for the sake of the paycheck. Both disciplines agree on the importance of living intentionally. Both voluntary simplicity and minimalism reject our cultural norms of distraction, disconnection, passive entertainment, reckless overspending, sedentary oblivion, unhealthy recreational eating, and generally marking time until retirement.

I've felt a certain tension between my interests in these two lifestyles. For instance, our household revolves around our dog and our parrot, yet they tie us to a physical location and add considerable complications to our travel arrangements. My husband has a garage workshop that is not portable by any means. It's a true passion in the minimalist sense, yet the circuit boards, soldering iron, robot parts, and other electronics hardly qualify under the rubric of voluntary simplicity. I walk everywhere in our town, accompanied by my Apple Watch, Bluetooth headset, iPhone, and iPad, doing my best impersonation of a cyborg. While I believe the collective carbon footprint of my devices is less than that of a second vehicle, my mind is never really at rest.

During our group discussion on voluntary simplicity, something clicked for me. I realized that I tend to focus on material possessions due to my work with hoarding and chronic disorganization. Yet, in my personal life, my belongings are largely irrelevant. My only remaining areas of clutter are books and the (simple) paper notes I'm still processing into my (minimalist) digital files. I don't have emotional attachments here; it's a matter of scheduling a break from work long enough to blast through them. The issue is that I still have plenty of work to do in mental simplicity. I can pause occasionally. I can take a breath and pull back to examine my priorities. I can slow down and recognize when I'm keeping myself busy just to sustain momentum.

This is really the point of both minimalism and voluntary simplicity. Peace of mind. Rejection of needless stress. Allowing space for connection, passion, inspiration, and intention. Appreciation of all the potential we have for greater joy and fulfillment.


Comments are closed.
    New podcast!
    Clutter of the Day

    Author

    I've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years.  I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago.

    I have a BA in History.

    I live in Southern California with my husband and our pets, an African Gray parrot and a rat terrier.

    #Questioner
    #ENTP

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies

    Archives

    January 2022
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015

    Categories

    All
    ADHD
    Birdwatching
    Body Image
    Book Reviews
    Books
    Cleaning
    Clutter
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    COVID 19 Chronicles
    Fibromyalgia
    Filks
    Fitness
    Food
    Future Self
    Futurism
    Goals
    Habits
    Humor
    Languages
    Martial Arts
    Mindset
    Minimalism
    Money
    Motivation
    Movie Reviews
    Moving
    Organization
    Past Self
    Pets
    Preparedness
    Procrastination
    Public Speaking
    Quests
    Relationships
    Resolutions
    Running
    Sleep
    Technology
    The Woo Woo
    The-woowoo
    Thyroid Disease
    Timemanagement
    Time Management
    Tiny Houses
    Travel
    Weight
    Work
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Dealing With Stuff
  • About
  • Contact