Standalone Essays · Character and Virtue

Minimalism and Voluntary Simplicity

The practice of minimalism is intentionally subtracting everything from your life that distracts you from your mission and calling. Things you might have formerly considered a gain might need to be re-evaluated in view of healthier life goals. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry put it, “perfection is finally attained, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”

It’s not about being poor, as if poverty is innately holy. It’s about having just the right number of things: enough to get the job done while enjoying life, but not falling into the trap of idolizing things. You might possibly get eighty-five years of life. Why spend sixty-five of those years paying for stuff you can’t really afford, don’t truly offer joy, and that others will simply end up rifling through on the auction table once you’ve died?

As Naval Ravikant observed, “people who live far below their means enjoy a freedom that people busy upgrading their lifestyles can’t fathom.” Or as Epicurus put it more starkly: “if a little is not enough for you, then nothing is.” Minimalism and voluntary simplicity are a part of learning humility and fleeing the dangers of materialism. It’s not externals that defile you. It’s your heart, your mind, how you perceive and value things that can defile you. Among those defiling things are greed, pride, and the foolish pursuit of happiness through ownership. Your better portions can be choked out through unnecessary worries, riches, and the pleasures of life. You may come to have those things yet lose out on producing mature fruit. What’s the point in accumulating stuff if in the process you lose your honor?

Voluntary simplicity is thus a means of watching out, of guarding against greed by reminding yourself that you are not defined by your possessions. It’s choosing who or what you will serve, and through that choice working at having others define you by your virtue. As Joshua Becker writes, “a home with fewer possessions is more spacious, more calming, and more focused on the people who live inside it.” Or, in Bruce Lee’s words: “the more we value things, the less we value ourselves.”

Minimalism is a pursuit of freedom: freedom from debt, freedom of time and space, and freedom from the rat race that this world’s culture has embraced. In fact, it is a disciplined rejection of this world’s cultural values, undertaken to clarify our best priorities. It’s coming to the realization that the fewer things we own, the fewer things we must clean and maintain.

Modern culture tries to get you to focus on what clothes you wear, what car you drive, what team or political party you support. These are substituted for the worthier values of humility, simplicity, and service. Let your personal culture value people for their character rather than their things. To do that, you must place a premium on your own character and systematically devalue things — thus the practice of voluntary simplicity.

Minimalism and voluntary simplicity are not just about physical clutter. They also involve the over-commitment you see on your calendar. It means de-cluttering your email inboxes and your to-do lists. It means reducing your debt, freeing up some to give to the poor. As Krishnamurti put it, “there is great happiness in not wanting; in not being something; in not going somewhere.”

Again, minimalism is not necessarily about depriving yourself. It’s more about not holding on to things, depending on things, needing things to validate your existence, or defining you as successful. Calvin Coolidge observed that “there is no dignity quite so impressive and no independence quite so important as living within our means.” It’s about knowing that all material things are passing and are thus not that important. You will be more available for compassionate service if you don’t allow unworthy things or unhealthy, time-eating but essentially worthless relationships to clutter your life.

Pursuing minimalism and voluntary simplicity is a way to develop contentment and satisfaction in your life, and of securing yourself in something that cannot leave you or forsake you. As Lao Tzu wrote, “be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”

Many people drive themselves to get degrees and high-paying jobs, so they can get more things, which necessitate bigger houses, which require more money and time, only to have to downsize as they age. They get a smaller house and get rid of their clutter when they are forced to by their inability to maintain it all. Then they get rid of even more as they enter either a retirement home or their children’s homes. Finally, they die, leaving it all behind for others to paw through at an auction. What a waste. As one writer put it, “I’m beginning to suspect that the second half of life is about learning to let go of everything I feverishly collected over the first half that wasn’t loving or human.” Or, in G.K. Chesterton’s formulation: “there are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less and less.”

Better to have a few valuable and useful things that bring you joy, with contentment and righteousness, than having all those shiny baubles, along with stress. As Mother Teresa put it, “the more you have, the more occupied you are. The less you have, the freer you are.” You may find that the more of your clutter that you donate, the more you will be able to breathe. The more trash you dispose of, the less weight you will carry around. The more stuff you take out of your living space, the easier it will be to see and think. The less clutter, the more life you’ll enjoy. Teach yourself to prefer extra space and extra time over extra stuff. Remember: “your home is living space, not storage space.”

The parable of the water carrier

Moshe was a water carrier back in the days before people had indoor plumbing and water had to be brought in from a well. He would wake up every morning at four and beg to haul water to people’s houses so they could have fresh water for their breakfasts. He was paid a small sum for his service but he would also bring water to the poor and to widows with no sons to help them, and he wouldn’t charge for it because he had a good heart.

Moshe married a beautiful young woman and they soon had children. They were very, very poor. His children were sometimes hungry and his beautiful wife had to dress in shabby clothes. This situation distressed Moshe and he would often wish he had more money. He would ruminate over his poverty as he hauled the water every day and dream of bringing his wife to a store to buy fine clothes and of seeing his children eating to their fill at a table covered in delicacies. Many years of such thoughts only brought discouragement.

One morning, though, as he was carrying his yoke of water buckets, he saw a leather pouch lying on the road, and inside were one hundred coins. He was so happy he cried. He danced and whistled. But that evening he heard that a neighbor had died and left behind his wife and eleven children. They had not a penny to their name and were starving. He felt immediately convicted to give them the money he had found. He fought that urge with everything he had. He had wished for money and after years of deprivation it had finally come, but he was miserable thinking about this widow and her eleven children starving while he had the means to provide for them.

As he was wrestling with this issue, he arrived at the spring where he got his water. There before him was the pipe out of which the precious water had flowed for many years, longer than he’d been alive, in fact. He suddenly understood. He was to be like that pipe. Fate had given him the means to be a blessing. He had to take care of his family too, but he didn’t have to be grasping and selfish about it. He could share some with this other family. It wouldn’t solve all their problems, but he wasn’t responsible for solving everything for them, was he? He was just responsible to do what he could with what he had. Plugging up the spring’s pipe would cause its water to become stagnant. Holding on to the little bit of money he’d gained would do the same to his soul. He would give some of the money to his neighbor’s widow. Who knew? Perhaps some more would come down the pipeline. He walked down the road singing again, his joy restored and the world beautiful once more.