Ah…the simple life. I often look at our cats Vlad and Sophie and wish I had such a simple life~eat, sleep, play, litter box…and repeat.
It is fairly evident that small living and simplicity go hand-in-hand. If you have ever tried to stuff a week’s worth of clothes in a suitcase to go on vacation, you know how difficult it is to take a large house full of stuff and squeeze it into a smaller house. It simply can’t be done without a storage unit, and you should ask yourself, “Why? Does all this ‘stuff’ bring more joy to my life everyday?” What is the reason you are going from that large house to a smaller one? Could it be…simplicity? {She said in her best church lady voice—archaic SNL reference ; ) }
A patron at the library where I work came to the desk the other day with a stack of house plan books. There was a small house book in the stack, and I asked her about it. She said “I only want to look at some different styles; we live in a 5,000 sq. ft. house and are downsizing to 3,000 sq. ft.” I told her how small we live, and she said that she couldn’t possibly live that small. I shook my head at this in disbelief about how she could live that big! Then I started to think about people who live in less than 500 sq. ft. who complain about how “large” we live. Wasn’t I doing the same thing? Wasn’t she downsizing, too? Was she planning a larger, simpler life? Is there such a thing?
I believe that any step we take toward living a smaller (whatever that is) simpler life is a good step. We should cheer these people on instead of criticize them. Ron interjects “I will continue to criticize unrealistic expectations of the really small life, like not being able to stand up in your bedroom or rearranging your furniture on a daily basis just to have a place to sit ~ ARRGHH!” Maybe she will downsize even further later on, or maybe she won’t. For now, she is thinking about moving toward a smaller space on this earth, and that’s going in the right step. Simplicity isn’t always simple. It’s a state of mind and being, and sometimes it takes a lot of little baby steps to get to the point where you say to yourself, “Ah…the simple life’s for me.”
Live Small and Prosper ; )
~Sue
