Cultivating a Simple Lifestyle
This is a guest post from Sara. She blogs at On Simplicity. Her blog is one of my favorites, as it addresses the beauty in a simple lifestyle, and shows an appreciation for the small things in life. Please take a visit to her site and if you enjoy her writing as much as I do, go ahead and subscribe to her feed!
Like a rich, fragrant garden, a simple lifestyle isn’t something that blossoms without effort or dedication. In most cases, a satisfying yet simple life is one that has been carefully cultivated over many years. I’m actually a beginning gardener in both the literal and figurative senses, but here’s what I’ve learned in my few seasons of simplicity.
Prepare the ground. Just as roses struggle to grow in hard, rocky soil, it’s hard to live a simple life in a messy home or office. Make your environment as conducive as possible to the lifestyle you want. Start by cleaning up the obvious messes. Then, move on to eliminating any clutter that’s distracting you. When your home is streamlined and simplified, you’ve created a place where simplicity is free to grow and develop.
Plant the seed. When you plant a seed in the garden, you’re making a conscious decision about what you want to grow and where. Planting the seed of simplicity is similar; you need to make a conscious choice. Each time you create a new habit, such as following the ten-second rule when shopping or batch processing your tasks, you’re planting a seed. The more seeds you plant with new habits, the larger and more fruitful your garden will grow.
Provide sustenance. Just as new seedlings need to be nurtured, so does your lifestyle. A simple life doesn’t have to be a deprived one. (Far from it!) To give yourself sustenance, seek out simple pleasures. Whether that’s catching a sunset with a glass of wine or repainting a room to give it a warm glow, taking a bubble bath or taking your partner away for the day, that’s all up to you. Just remember that simple pleasures aren’t a luxury, they’re a necessity for you to flourish and thrive.
Pull the weeds from time to time. Weeds are incredible nuisances. They siphon off water and nutrients, leaving your favorite blooms to wilt while silently taking over the garden. In your life, weeds are the clutter and commitments that slowly creep in. One or two don’t make a huge impact, but if you’re not vigilant about pruning these weeds away, your simple life suddenly becomes very complicated. Take time to remove unnecessary time commitments and clutter from your life to keep it flourishing.
Enjoy the view. There’s not much point in creating a rich life for yourself if you can’t sit back and savor it. Stop every now and then to look around you. Notice how peaceful your surroundings are after all that work. Breathe in the calm atmosphere you’ve created and sink into the mental freedom you’ve gained. Most of all, stop and smell the roses.
June 17th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Woo-hoo! Thanks for featuring my post; I had a wonderful time writing it.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
This is beautiful Sara. I love gardens and, of course, they have to be carefully planned and cultivated. I know what you mean about the weeds too (and pests), you constantly have to be out there tending to your garden. Do you know what would be a good exercise? Look at each area of your life and ask: what kinds of plants are growing here? Then you can decide whether to nurture those plants or pull them out and plant something else. Wow, now you really got me thinking about the life as a garden analogy
June 17th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
It’s the wonderful calmness that I love most about living simply, but as you say, that won’t happen as long as life is cluttered with unnecessary stuff and commitments.
I love Marelisa’s idea about asking yourself what kind of plants are growing in your life. Life as a garden is certainly a good analogy.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 am
[...] And a guest post at Remodeling This Life, called Cultivating a Simple Lifestyle. [...]