Dear Friends Of The Simple Living Network,
It is truly exciting to say, "Welcome to the 11th Anniversary Issue of our free, on-line Newsletter."
Wow, 11 years — 56 issues — over 200,000 subscribers — no advertising — and it has always been 100% free. That is quite an accomplishment.
In addition, The Simple Living Network continues to offer other great community services such as our very active and vibrant Discussion Forum community, our Study Groups & Circles database and OnLine Study Groups for Your Money Or Your Life, SimpleRadio, Newsletter Archives and Event Schedule.
We want to say "Thank You" to all those who have participated and contributed (content and financially) over the years. We would not be here without you. We truly appreciate your continued support of our important efforts. Together, we are building a central location on the "Internets" where like-minded people from around the world can gather and share their experiences on the path of simplicity.
As you may or may not know, The Simple Living Network is a small, home-based business. Our staff is small and mostly volunteer. As such, our operating expenses are low, allowing us to use a greater percentage of our profit to provide free Community Services, like those listed above and on the menu at your left.
We do not to charge membership or subscription fees or accept paid advertising. This Is A User Supported Web Site! We are funded solely by modest sales through our on-line store and, more importantly, by generous, voluntary CyberAngel gift contributions from folks like you! Click Here To Become A CyberAngel.
We have purposely chosen to operate as a for-profit corporation in order to model sustainable small business practices. And, we have purposely chosen to operate without support from government, industry or foundations so that we may remain a stable and independent voice, free from the bureaucratic constraints that often come with the fundraising / nonprofit structure.
In short, to be successful long-term, we believe we must operate through self-funding — through sales and CyberAngel Contributions from those who use our Community Services.
Every year during January and February we ask all of our visitors to stop for just a moment and consider the value of The Simple Living Network. If this were a subscription service or membership organization, what would you consider a fair participation fee?
We are not asking for much. In fact, if every person who participated in our free Discussion Forums or read our free, on-line Newsletter were to contribute just a few dollars each year — $12, $24, $48 — a dollar or two per month — we would have the funding to meet all of our financial commitments without difficulty. Of course, a gift of any size, small or large, is greatly appreciated.
We will track our progress using the thermometer on your left. Help us fill it up so that we can keep our Community Services alive and well in 2007.
Click Here To Contribute Using Our On-Line Ordering System, or send a check or money order to:
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To show our appreciation, all contributors are listed in The CyberAngel Hall Of Fame. Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!
Happy New Year! And, enjoy this edition of our free, on-line Newsletter,
Dave Wampler, Founder
Fred Ecks, Editor
Copyright © The Simple Living Network. All Rights Reserved.
- Introduction: A Letter From The Editors
- New Resources: The Latest Additions To Our Resource Directory
- My Simplicity Group: Report From A Participant
- Radio Paradise: Welcoming A New Partner
- Stop Junk Mail! The Center For A New American Dream
- Your War Doesn't Fit Into My Budget: Frugal Living As A Form Of Tax Resistance
- The Slow Life: Simple Living America
- Money/Life Balance In The New Millennium: A Modern Personal View Of Your Money Or Your Life
- Single, Expectant Mom: The Dollar Stretcher
- Holidays Can Still Be Merry Without All The Spending
- Simple Living For The Worn Out Woman, by Alice Gray, Dr. Steven Stephens & John Van Diest
- Celebrate Simply: NEW 2nd Edition, by Nancy Twigg
- Little House On A Small Planet: Simple Homes, Cozy Retreats & Energy Efficient Possibilities, by Shay Salomon
- Simply In Season: Recipes That Celebrate The Rhythm Of The Land In The Spirit Of The More-With-Less Cookbook, by Mary Beth Lind & Cathleen Hockman-Wert
- Simply In Season Children's Cookbook, by Mark Beach & Julie Kauffman
In the previous issue of our Newsletter we introduced new resources for Body, Mind & Spirit. They proved to be very popular. As such, we have further expanded this new category of resources with the items below....
- The Detox Box: A Program For Greater Health & Vitality, by Mark Hyman M.D.
- Dr. Andrew Weil's Mind-Body Tool Kit, by Dr. Andrew Weil
- The Ashtanga Yoga Collection, by Richard Freeman
- Guided Mindfulness Meditation (& Yoga), by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- Insight Meditation Kit: A Step-By-Step Course On How To Meditate, by Sharon Salzberg & Joseph Goldstein
- Mindfulness For Beginners, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- Guided Mindfulness Meditation (& Yoga), by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- Dr. Andrew Weil's Mind-Body Tool Kit, by Dr. Andrew Weil
- Pema Chödrön Audio Collection, by Pema Chödrön
- The Biology Of Belief: How Your Beliefs Shape Your Health & Your Destiny, by Bruce H. Lipton, Ph. D.
- The Diamond In Your Pocket: Discovering Your True Radiance, by Gangaji
- The Way Of The Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide To Mastering The Challenges Of Women, Work & Sexual Desire, by David Deida
Copyright © 2006
Early in 2006, I co-founded a small simplicity group with a few willing, but skeptical neighbors. We met monthly at the local library in a largely impersonal conference room in the evenings after work. By outward appearances, we were quite different from each other. One member had a young daughter and a teenage stepson; she worked as an art director while her husband stayed home with the children. Two of the members were "empty-nesters." One was retired and did volunteer work. The other hoped to retire soon from an exhausting sales job. Our youngest member was single, enthusiastic and kept us laughing. We had a member who already practiced simple living and could share her experiences with us. Myself, I was married with no kids, but with two adorable cats. We decided to use The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs as our textbook. Each week we read a new chapter and discussed ways to incorporate mindfulness into our daily lives. Our group of all women (not by choice, it just happened that way) rarely had long moments of silence. We found that in our day-to-day living, we often acted as overachievers, caregivers and sometimes martyrs, and didn't allow ourselves time to reflect. The simplicity group gave us the opportunity to talk about ourselves.
Over the past year, I've learned a lot from each of these women, although, one moment in particular stands out. In an early meeting, one of the "empty-nesters" asked us why we wanted to pursue a more simple life. Was simplicity itself the end goal-or was there more to it? We knew about the followers of voluntary simplicity who pushed the envelope in order to see how little one really needs to get by, but was their austere life the original reason they followed the path? Or, was there some other catalyst to the pursuit of a simple life? Did our group need a reason for wanting simplicity? Like many simple livers, we wanted to make our impact on the earth lighter, and we didn't want to use so much more of our share of the worlds' resources. These were noble reasons to follow voluntary simplicity but, they weren't our sole reasons. In my own situation, I recognized that I was tired of always wanting more and feeling like what I had was never enough. Unfortunately, even with my simplicity support group, I couldn't shake the feeling of wanting more. Maybe my desire for more stuff was masking the real thing that I craved. I began to think that I had been "wanting" the wrong things. I admitted my selfishness and realized why I wanted a simple life: I wanted more time.
This sentiment was echoed by all of the members in the group. We all wanted more time. We wanted a simpler life so that we could have more time for the things we wanted to do. Granted, the ways that we'd spend our time would be vastly different. One member wanted to garden more, one wanted to spend more time with her children, one wanted to be more meaningfully involved in her church and another wanted to help her daughter and son-in-law with their new child. I wanted to help my husband with his growing business and still have time to travel.
The group has gotten very good at pinpointing our time wasters. For some it's people who drain us emotionally, for others it's letting go of the guilt from saying "no" to another party/trip/project. Luhr's book helped us look at each facet of our lives for ways to cut back on the "unmeaningful stuff" and keep what we wanted. For instance, the chapter on "Holidays," (which serendipitously fell upon our November meeting) gave us inspiration going into a very challenging season for simple livers. One group member told us that she was making the choice not to participate in the usual lavish gift exchanges with her group of friends. She opted for planning a small dinner at her home, where everyone could relax and spend time together. We each agreed to carefully look at how we spent our time during the holidays. We made lists of the things we disliked and decided not to waste time on them.
Most of the group members are far from living an austere life with only those items absolutely necessary to existence, but each of us has reconsidered what we feel to be important. We know that each time we choose to bring a new gadget or another commitment into our lives, we are giving up a little bit of our time.
We'll continue to meet though 2007, although we are running out of chapters in Luhr's guide. We enjoy each other's company enough to find a way to keep the discussion and the support going. As far as living a simple life goes, even though our reasons for simplifying might be a bit selfish, we hope we are making a bit of a difference at the same time.
About The Author
Jennifer Gleissner co-founded a small simplicity group in her small Indiana town. She hopes that her group's actions will help inspire others to follow the voluntary simplicity path.
Related Resources
- To find a simplicity study group near you or start one yourself, please visit The Simple Living Network Study Groups & Circles information pages.
- The Simple Living Guide
- The Circle Of Simplicity
Welcome to the newest Simple Living Network Partner: Radio Paradise - Providing an eclectic DJ-mixed blend of modern and classic rock, electronica, world music, acoustic and more. 100% commercial free.
We really like Radio Paradise here at The Simple Living Network. It plays in our office daily. We admire their well orchestrated selection of music, their business model - which is similar to ours - and the fact that they, like us, are 100% commercial free and user supported.
Support Radio Paradise when you make a purchase from The Simple Living Network! It's easy. Just click here to re-enter The Simple Living Network (with a hidden "Support RP" code) and we will automatically contribute 5% of your purchases directly to Radio Paradise.
Copyright © 2006
Every four months, an area the size of the Rocky Mountain National Park is leveled in order to produce the 100 million trees worth of junk mail that invades the privacy of millions of Americans each year. Citizens have the right to post a ‘No Soliciting’ sign on their driveway, turn off the TV and radio when unwanted ads come on, and sign up for the popular DoNotCall.gov telemarketer registry. Shouldn't we have the right to opt out of junk mail with an easy-to-use Do Not Junk registry?
Help New American Dream generate support for state and federal Do Not Junk Opt-Out registries and teach other Americans how to opt-out of junk mail by organizing in your local community.
Request a free Junk Mail Organizer Kit (delivered electronically) with step-by-step instructions!
Approximately 20% of Americans have contacted the credit bureaus to opt-out of their solicitations. You can opt-out too by using these forms. The rest of us can expect junk mail to continue invading the privacy of our homes, wasting our time, and destroying our natural resources — until we get a national Do Not Junk Opt-Out registry.
Before Congress created the national Do Not Call registry, over 30 states led the effort by passing state level registries. Urge your state officials to create a Do Not Junk registry and help your fellow citizens remove themselves from mailing lists by requesting a free junk mail activist kit to be delivered to you electronically!
Copyright © 2006
Since I adopted a frugal lifestyle four years ago, of all the dumb, harmful, and worthless things I don't miss wasting my money on, I don't miss the war on Iraq the most.
When the war on Iraq started, I quit my job and deliberately reduced my income to the point where I no longer owe federal income tax. I transformed my life, concentrating on what really matters, so that I can live within my means without paying federal income tax - honestly, peacefully, and legally.
American households have, on average, spent more than $4,000 apiece on the Iraq war (so far), and that's just the extra costs of that war above and beyond what they spend to keep the military going year after year (another $5,000 per year per household).
By and large, these households spend this money whether they want to or not, because they don't think they have a choice. At most, they grumble about "death and taxes" and they wish the politicians were nobler and wiser while they watch their paychecks get whittled down by the I.R.S.
But the times call for more than complaining and wishful thinking. We have to put as much of our effort as we can on the side of our values, instead of allowing so much of our effort to be stolen by the tax man and used to promote the values of politicians and the military/industrial complex.
As it says in Your Money Or Your Life, "when we go to our jobs we are trading our life energy for money." When we pay taxes, the government is taking our life energy from us. If you live frugally on a low income, the I.R.S. takes less from you — so you can dedicate more to your own priorities.
In fact, when it comes to the personal income tax, about two-in-five American households live "under the tax line" and pay nothing at all. Opponents of the Iraq war and other government priorities would be wise to ask if they should endeavor to become part of this two-in-five.
There's a long history of frugality being used in the arsenal of groups opposed to government policy — including the American "Founding Fathers". During the first Continental Congress in 1774, John Adams wrote home to his wife, "Frugality, my Dear, Frugality, Œconomy, Parcimony must be our Refuge. I hope the Ladies are every day diminishing their ornaments, and the Gentlemen too. Let us Eat Potatoes and drink Water. Let us wear Canvass, and undressed Sheepskins, rather than submit to the unrighteous, and ignominious Domination that is prepared for Us."
Maybe it's not time for another American Revolution just yet, but it's certainly time for more Americans to put their money and their life energy where their hearts are.
About The Author
David Gross is a writer from San Francisco, California. He blogs about tax resistance and frugal living at The Picket Line (David Gross is a writer from San Francisco, California. He blogs about tax resistance and frugal living at The Picket Line (http://sniggle.net/Experiment).
Related Resources
- Your Money Or Your Life
- The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (http://nwtrcc.org) publishes a pamphlet on "Low Income / Simple Living as War Tax Resistance" that is available through their web site.
By Cecile Andrews
Copyright © 2006
A crucial part of Simple Living is the Slow Life, a concept I explore in my new book, Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure, and Joie de Vivre. The Slow Life is a way of life that supports the well-being of people and the planet. It’s a movement that is spreading around the world as a reaction to loss of happiness, declining health, and the devastation of the environment.
The main culprit is our time poverty. We’re overworked, overbooked, and stressed and pressured to the max. The term I keep hearing is "slammed."
Our time poverty is affecting our health, our happiness, our democracy, and the environment. And we don’t even have enough time to figure out what to do!
Our lack of time may be the main culprit, but the underlying cause of our problems is a belief system — a belief system that says the main goal in life is earning more money and gaining more status. It’s a belief system that profit is more important than the well-being of people and the planet. It’s a belief system that is expressed in greed.
Greed underlies almost all the problems we have in our society. It was greed that made Enron cheat thousands of people. It is greed that makes the drug companies sell unsuspecting victims drugs that do more harm than good. It’s greed that has driven us into war.
What is the solution? There are two areas of research that can give us some guidance. First, in the last few years there has been a great deal of work done on the subject of happiness. The researchers have tested our cultural belief that if you’re rich you’ll be happy. What they have found, time and again, is that after a certain point, more money does not bring happiness. What makes people happy is not money, but warm, supportive relationships with others, and sometimes money gets in the way of that.
That is research that looks at the micro level of people’s individual lives. There is another area of research that is testing our belief system on a macro level. This research finds that an egalitarian society works better than one with a lot of rich people. What this research has found is that the best indicator for the health of a nation, as measured in longevity, is the wealth gap in a country. As the gap between the rich and the rest of us gets wider, our health goes down! Thus, in the Fifties, when the US had a broad middle class, we were the healthiest in the world. Out of 26 nations, we were number one. Now that we have the largest gap in the industrialized world, our health is at the bottom.
This gap continues to widen so quickly it seems foolish to even quote statistics. But I saw an analogy the other day that said if all Americans were set on a ladder with ten rungs, the gap between the wages of those on the ninth rung and those on the first has risen by a third since 1980. We’re back in the wealth gap of the Twenties.
Why has this happened? In part because we’ve allowed it to happen: almost everyone believes that they could be rich some day, so they don’t mind tax cuts for the rich. Eight out of ten, more than any other country, believe that though you may start poor, if you work hard, you can make loads of money.
Why does a wealth gap affect the health of a nation? It’s not just that the poor people bring down the average. When there’s a gap, it creates a society in which the rich have more power and they use that power to undermine the common good. They pressure the government to keep cutting back on the safety net. In their zeal to boost stock prices for their companies and raise wages for themselves, corporation CEOs lay people off with impunity. Since our cultural belief is that everyone is out to get what they can for themselves and collective bargaining is weak, there is no cry of outrage. As a result, our system is cutthroat and inequality and fear grow. "Fear of falling" motivates everyone, even those at the top, to work faster and faster and no one does anything to fight longer and longer work hours.
When I speak to people about this, I ask them if they see any hope, and they reply, "no." Isn’t it strange that in the most powerful country in the world its citizens are so powerless.
It is clear that if we care about human happiness, we need an egalitarian, caring society that supports warm human relationships. But getting the policies in place for that will take a long time and a lot of work. What can we do in the meantime? Working to create more community is one thing we can do.
But community needs leisure and joie de vivre. Leisure is not just more time, but a different experience of time. It’s time in which you are relaxed and calm and can pay attention and be free of distractions. It’s time to savor life.
Joie de vivre is the recognition that we’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves, not just working to get ahead. It’s a form of energy that brings people and cultures a sense of aliveness. It’s the central ingredient in happiness.
When people live slower and more simply, they consume less so they can work less and have more time for community. In working for social change, there are several levels of change:
- Policy Change: We need laws that give us shorter work hours and a strong middle class.
- Institutional Change: Responsible companies develop flex time polices, encourage people to take their vacations, help out with child care and parental leaves.
- Social Inventions: We need "experiments" that bring people together in a cooperative, caring way, ways of conducting life that resist the cutthroat competitiveness of our consumer society that destroys the planet. For example, people are getting involved in things like farmers markets, ecovillages, co-housing, and flex car ventures.
- Personal Change: And of course, we always need personal change in which people consciously slow down, multi-task less, get more involved with nature, and find time for creativity, caring, and celebration. Without personal change, there is no energy to work for policy change.