Conversation among people seeking to simplify their lives often comes around to this apparent contradiction: Some of the hallmarks of a "simple life" actually seem more complicated or more difficult than the time-saving, convenient ways we are used to.
There are many yardsticks that can be used to measure simplicity: lower cost, lower ecological impact, lower stress, more time, more attention to relationships, more personal satisfaction.
Since people seek simplicity for a number of reasons--spiritual, economic, environmental, personal--different people will give different weights to these ways of measuring. What simplifies one person's life may seem complicated to another.
For example, to some people, having a dishwasher makes life simpler because it does a daily time-consuming task easily and conveniently. Does simplicity mean you have to wash dishes by hand?
In the same way, it can be argued that having a car is simpler than adapting to a bus schedule and waiting for transfers; that throwing a pre-cooked meal in the microwave is simpler than cooking from scratch; that tossing everything into the garbage is simpler than separating food waste and hiking out to the compost pile with that stinky pail.
It can seem simpler to buy packaged food in the supermarket than schlepping along containers to fill from bulk bins at a co-op--and certainly more so than toiling in the garden to grow vegetables and in the kitchen to can, freeze and dry food grown at home.
So why are we calling this "simple living" when it really isn't simple? My answer is that we are talking about two different meanings of the term "simple"--in fact, two opposite meanings.
For example, to some people, having a dishwasher makes life simpler because it does a daily time-consuming task easily and conveniently. Does simplicity mean you have to wash dishes by hand?
In the same way, it can be argued that having a car is simpler than adapting to a bus schedule and waiting for transfers; that throwing a pre-cooked meal in the microwave is simpler than cooking from scratch; that tossing everything into the garbage is simpler than separating food waste and hiking out to the compost pile with that stinky pail.
It can seem simpler to buy packaged food in the supermarket than schlepping along containers to fill from bulk bins at a co-op--and certainly more so than toiling in the garden to grow vegetables and in the kitchen to can, freeze and dry food grown at home.
So why are we calling this "simple living" when it really isn't simple? My answer is that we are talking about two different meanings of the term "simple"--in fact, two opposite meanings.
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