I recently realized that there’s a phrase that describes my purpose with this blog perfectly. In many ways, this blog is all about simple living for busy women. When this phrase came to me, I decided that I needed to look up the term simple living and find out if it fits.
Here’s a few of the terms that came up in my search: poverty on purpose, minimalism, organic, crunchy, homesteading, intentional living, green living, zero waste, frugal, and so many other descriptors. This showed me that the term “simple living” is open for interpretation and that I should probably share my definition of simple living.
My journey towards living simply started a little over a year ago when we moved across the country from California to Michigan. We chose to let movers handle all of the boxing an heavy lifting for us, especially since I was pregnant during the move.
The eye opening moment was when I watched the movers unpack our belongings. We lived in a small one bedroom apartment in California and our stuff suddenly fit comfortably into our three bedroom house in Michigan. This was a problem. This showed me that we had too much stuff. This is the moment that started a shift in my outlook on living.
I started to shift from basic living to making decisions with intention and keeping things simple. To me, simple living encompasses several different facets of life. It’s more than getting rid of all of your stuff or living like you have nothing. In fact, it’s neither of these things to me. It’s a matter of keeping things simple in a not-so-simple world. It’s a matter of making things a little less complicated so that you can enjoy the special moments that happen each and every day.
While I have spent some time decluttering our belongings, we definitely aren’t minimalists. We are mindful shoppers and careful about what we bring into our home. This doesn’t mean that we never purchase anything. This simply means that we think through the things we purchase and bring into our home. We try to keep in mind how we’re going to use an item and what purpose it serves before we bring it into our home.
I have been decluttering and organizing our home for several months now (in fact, I created the Room by Room Challenge as a result). While I’ve gotten rid of many things, we still have a lot of belongings and there’s probably more decluttering in my future. I’m learning to let go of sentimental connections to objects so that I can create sentimental attachments to memories instead. Memories stick with you forever and stuff is just a temporary space filler.
When it comes to simple living, I don’t believe that it stops with the stuff in our homes. I believe that the clutter in our schedules can be just as stressful as the physical stuff that surrounds us. This is why I include time management and how we look at our schedule in my definition of simple living. I feel that creating a schedule that contains things that make you happy and fulfilled is an important part of living a happy life.
Overall, I can sum up my definition of simple living by saying that it’s a matter of embracing life, looking for the things that make you happy, and letting go of the things that don’t. It’s a matter of embracing who you are and what you value in life rather than focusing on the opinions of others. By keeping things simple in life, you can embrace life and find happiness in all of your moments.
Are you familiar with the term simple living? What does it mean to you?
