The "Simple Living" Myth

"Simple living" has become a sought-after keyword in the world of blogging and YouTube, because so many people search the phrase on a daily basis. Ironically, this term which implies, among other things, frugality and disdain for collecting material things, can be quite profitable.

The truth is, people who write and video about simple living are selling a fantasy. Why?

Life is complicated.

I don't care who you are, where you live, or what your lifestyle looks like. Life is never simple. Even a newborn baby has to figure out what kind of cries will get their mother's attention. They don't instantly get their needs met just by having a need. 

Want to be self-sufficient in food? It takes a lot of work, planning, and, yes, some material collection in the way of seeds and tools. Growing and foraging for food are complicated endeavors.

How about living off the energy grid? Unless you have zero energy needs, the items you purchase in order to produce your own energy have been manufactured using a complicated process, and assembled by other people. 

I know! Make things really simple by just renting an apartment where all utilities are paid and maintenance is free. On the outside, this lifestyle appears simple, and probably feels simple to the person living it. But you and I both know that all of the materials, resources, and systems required to allow this "simple" life end up being a complicated array.

Time to face the truth.

Simple living is a myth. The main reason? 

People. For one thing, entering into any kind of relationship with even one person makes life much more complicated. For another, human beings thrive on those relationships. We're meant to be interdependent. Even if you live all by yourself in a lean-to, trying to be as independent as you can, you have to count on other people not to infringe on your space. And you can't control other people.

That's what really makes life complicated.

How about a new phrase?

I prefer the term "simpler living." Because, while a simple life is non-existent, a person can always strive to make one's journey simpler.

Henry David Thoreau hated the railroad because he believed technology made life more complicated. But no one with half a brain can believe that his year on Walden Pond carried no frustrations or worries with it. And the seeds that he used to grow his food didn't just come out of thin air. He would have had to have spent money in a store to purchase them.

 Then, afterward, he wrote a book about his experience and sold it to a publisher.

In other words, he got involved with a complicated system in order to get his message about simple living across.

Like all of the online "simple living" gurus do, hoping to make a few bucks from the fantasy they weave in their audiences' minds. 

Simple living does not exist. But it's always a good thing to reach for the next step to make life a little simpler.

Give Your Kitchen Some Breathing Room!

In this video, I question the conventional habit of keeping all sorts of dishes in your kitchen, "just in case." Is there a real reason to have one set of "everyday", and one set of "company" dishes? Or, do you really need enough place settings for ten? Twenty?

When you downsize your dishes, you can downsize your kitchen. Watch the video for more.

Simplify Your Life, Step Eight: Outsource

Many people equate simple living with doing everything themselves. On the contrary, trying to be completely self-sufficient - which is impossible, anyway - can make life more stressful rather than less.

A stressful life is not simple.

So in this video I discuss how outsourcing can make your life simpler, in terms of money, storage space, and stress. Enjoy!

Simplify Your Life, Step Seven: Choose A Smaller Home

A really big step in simple living is realizing that the large homes that are being built for couples or couples with only one or two kids are wasteful on several levels. You can have enough space for everything, and enough privacy, without 700 square feet per person.

I'm not necessarily recommending a tiny house - while that's what we live in right now, that's not our ideal - but many people could stand to downsize their homes.

Enjoy the video, and find my book Crazy Simple on the "Non-fiction books by Emily" tab.

Simplify Your Life, Step Six: Simplify Your Diet

Those who know me well (and you'll see this in a huge way in the new novel I just released, Hungry), know that I believe diet and nutrition is one of the major factors in living in optimum health. When you bring your diet down to its lowest common denominators - in other words, eat food that you enjoy in its most natural state possible - your life becomes simpler in several ways. Not just in the area of health, but also finances and home organization.

To check out my book, Crazy Simple, click the "Non-fiction books by Emily" tab above this page.

Enjoy the video! (And remember to click the link in the sidebar to subscribe to my YouTube channel.)

Simplify Your Life, Step Five: Buy Used

A big part of simple living is reducing expenditures. But sometimes, you just have to buy something. You either genuinely need a thing, or you really, REALLY want it. Many things can be just as nice if you buy them used as buying them new.

In the video that follows, I advise as to which kinds of things are best bought new, and which ones to save money on by purchasing used.

To check out my book, Crazy Simple, click the "Non-fiction books by Emily" tab above this page.

Enjoy the video! (And remember to click the link in the sidebar to subscribe to my YouTube channel.)

Simplify Your Life, Step Four: The Mantra Of Our Grandparents

If you're looking to live a simpler life, there are a lot of ways to go about it. This series on simple living gives you eight basic steps to help you get started. In the video that follows, I talk about the motto that became well-known and was oft-quoted from parents to their children during the World War and Depression years.

It is still a relevant mantra to follow today, if you are serious about simplifying your life!

To check out my book, Crazy Simple, click the "Non-fiction books by Emily" tab above this page.

Enjoy the video! (And remember to click the link in the sidebar to subscribe to my YouTube channel.)

The Third Step To A Simpler Life: Get Out Of Debt

You need to get out of debt if you want to really simplify your life. Yes, that includes car payments, and should eventually include your mortgage if you have one.

This video explains more. Find the link to my book Crazy Simple when you click on the above tab that says "Non-fiction books by Emily."

Enjoy!

Next Step: DECLUTTER!

In this video about simple living, I discuss the importance of decluttering. It's just a quick 1-2-3 step explanation, but it might get you motivated to simplify your home.

Find the link to my book Crazy Simple by clicking on the "Non-fiction books by Emily" tab above.

Enjoy!

The First Step To Simplify Your Life

Want to simplify your life? This video reveals the first step. You can find the link to my book Crazy Simple by clicking the "Non-fiction books by Emily" tab above this page.

Enjoy!

Why Simple Living?

Someone recently asked why we have chosen this simple living lifestyle. It’s a fair question, and one that I feel took me too long to answer. But that’s how I am. Snappy comebacks come to me four hours too late – and I usually never have a chance to use them again.

The essence of the answer is this: we want to be as healthy as possible, and we want the planet to be as healthy as possible. For us to be as healthy as possible, we need to reduce stress. For the planet to be as healthy as possible, we need to reduce our consumption footprint.

How our move has reduced our stress levels

• The air is much cleaner here. Inhaling pollution is stressful to the body.
• We don’t have to listen to gas lawn mowers, hedge trimmers, and (evil) leaf blowers all week long.
• B has a lot of space to go wild in. He still somehow manages us to drive us crazy, but it’s not as bad as it was in the city. And I don’t have to spend ninety minutes a day taking him to a park to play. Having more time in a day does wonders to alleviate stress.
• I was getting frustrated with the limited space I had to garden in, which was causing me stress. Tons of space equals less stress for me.
• J didn’t like his job; he is now fulfilling one of his dream of writing a novel. Doing what you love might perhaps take most of the stress out of your life.
• We no longer have a Property Standards department breathing down our necks and measuring the height of the weeds in the alley.
• J and I were tired of the stinky, noisy, closed-in city. We’re quiet people and we wanted to live in a quieter place. Living a lifestyle that fits your temperament reduces stress.

How our unconventional home choices are reducing/going to reduce stress

• Having indoor plumbing was a major cause of both maintenance expense and stress several times when we lived in Plano. We will never have to hire a plumber to fix a toilet, tear apart a shower, or break a hole in the ceiling to repair a leaky pipe.
• Small/tiny houses equal minimized heating and cooling bills. The less money you need, the less stressful life is.
• They also equal a lot less time cleaning.
• And a lot less money and time to maintain.
• They leave a lot more money in the bank account, which means you don’t have to work as much to live in it.
• An earth-sheltered house (even a large one) is extremely low-maintenance.
• There’s a lot less damage B can do in a small house that isn’t plumbed. Seriously. Some of you think I’m kidding.

How our choices are helping the planet

• We don’t waste water flushing a toilet.
• The contents of the composting toilet are used as fertilizer.
• An earth-sheltered home doesn’t take up land space, because it is buried and you can plant stuff on top of it.
• A tiny/small house reduces pollution by reducing energy needs.
• It also reduces the amount of stuff you can have, which automatically reduces the amount of garbage you ultimately produce.

I could think of more, but…

That’s enough to answer the question, “Why have you chosen this simple lifestyle?”

Oh, I forgot the most important reason: God has called us to it.

Happy reading!

Emily Josephine

So Much For Organic

There is a belief among the skeptics that the label “organic” as applied to food is vague and not very descriptive. Consumers assume it means one thing, but the standards can vary from place to place. 

Years ago, my brother asked me how I knew that the produce I was buying was really organic. (This was before buying organic produce was “cool.”) At the time, I couldn’t think of a good explanation. Only weeks or months later, when I brought home a head of lettuce that was full of little black bugs – mostly dead – did I have proof that at least the lettuce I was buying wasn’t being sprayed with any kind of insecticide.

I have trusted the organic label on anything I have purchased from Whole Foods. And I believe I’ve been right in my trust. But there’s one problem.

Whole Foods – even the great corporation of Whole Foods – must succumb to government regulations.

Bye-bye, organic melons

Recently, the man who owns the goat dairy where we buy our raw milk attended a farmer’s market conference. He enjoyed himself there and learned some new things, but he also brought back some infuriating news. That is, infuriating to those of us working hard to keep synthetic chemicals out of our bodies. Thanks to a few cases of food poisoning due to – authorities believe – consumption of food from roadside stands (and maybe a farmer’s market somewhere), a bill was created and passed into law that will require all melons (and likely a few other items) to be rinsed with bleach before being sold. THIS INCLUDES MELONS THAT ARE CERTIFIED ORGANIC.

Okay, so something being rinsed in bleach isn’t the same as pesticides seeping through the skin and becoming part of the fruit. But in my opinion, as soon as you put any amount of any kind of toxic chemical during any part of the handling of a food, it is no longer organic.

Not only that – the rinsing with bleach – but also the government is working on forbidding the operation of roadside stands. If you won’t take your goods to the nearest “legal” farmer’s market – no matter how far away it might be – you won’t sell your stuff.

So much for a free country.

By the way…

Speaking of raw milk, you might have heard about the FDA raiding dairies that sell unpasteurized milk. Terrorizing even the children that live on those farms. Destroying equipment. Shutting them down.

It’s actually not the FDA. It’s Homeland Security.

Aah, yes, chalk another one up to the government for helping us to feel safe in our nation of birth.

What next?

I’m normally not a harbinger of doom, but this dismaying news led my mind down a path: is there coming a day where the label “organic” won’t be able to be trusted, anywhere?

I’m glad I know how to grow my family’s fruits and vegetables. I also know that even if I couldn’t grow our own melons, I wouldn’t buy a single one again from a store or farmer’s market.

Walk The Walk, Or Hush

Between struggling with whether to use solar panels for energy at our home, and reading something about university students picketing for divestment from fossil fuel stocks, my brain has been kicked into high gear about the whole climate change issue.

Okay, so that’s an exaggeration, but I’ve had a thought here and there about it. Finding out about the recent huge anti-fuel protest march in NYC has almost made me spend an entire five minutes ruminating on the subject.

If I sound flippant and like I don’t care about our planet, I do care. Thing is, not only is the whole controversy based on conflicting theories (not facts, only theories), but also now the whole thing has gotten so out of whack that they’re blaming cows for the greenhouse effect.

First of all, after the previous four winters (and it looks like the trend will continue this winter), I refuse to believe in “Global Warming.” Another impending Ice Age is more likely. Or, maybe the global warming trend of the past few decades is now turning, so that the planet’s climate is going back to what it was in the 1970s and earlier.

You know, that’s natural, for the earth to go in cycles like that: colder for a few decades, then warmer, than cooling back down. So do I not believe that greenhouse gases are causing a problem? Sure! I believe they are increasing my risk of lung cancer, and piling up Lord-knows-how-many toxins in my body that might cause me to die young. This is one reason I wanted to move out into the middle of nowhere.

Are they causing climate change? Honestly, I don’t know. And I don’t think anyone else can honestly say they know, either.

But my biggest angst with the whole climate change debate isn’t about “experts” trying to convince everyone else of their certitude one way or their other. Rather, it’s the hypocrisy of the people in the movement.

Hot dogs, anyone?

A growing number of people are at least trying, if not sticking with, veganism. Part of that has to do with the unfortunate bill of goods they’ve been sold about how animal farts are melting the polar ice caps. But I wonder: how many card-carrying environmentalists have given up meat and dairy? How many of those afore-mentioned marchers took advantage of the many NYC street vendors selling hot dogs?

And that brings me to the quintessential example of anti-fossil fuel hypocrisy. Few of those involved in the recent protest walked, biked, or drove a solar-powered electric car to it. No. Some of them actually flew in a plane. To protest the extraction of fossil fuels from the earth.

Then they went home to their oversized houses, and do you know what they did? They cooked some meat from their upright refrigerator on their electric range while charging their smartphone, did a load of laundry and dried it in a clothes dryer, then drove their kid to soccer practice…six blocks away.

I know, I know. Not everyone who protests against fracking and coal and proposed pipelines lives like a mini Al Gore. But most do.

Understand, I’m not mad at you if you use a clothes dryer or a refrigerator. However, I’m not thrilled if you’re the “average American” when it comes to electricity use, and then get upset when the world’s health must be compromised in order to keep up with your energy usage.

It’s easy to protest pollution with signs. But change never comes by doing things the easy way. Walk the walk, or stop talking. All that hot air is killing the planet. 

Solar Lights Suck

For various reasons, mainly because of the ridiculous inefficiency and high cost, J and I have decided not to generate our own electricity from solar panels. Well, turns out that solar technology needs a lot of work with small gadgets, too.

When I learned about solar-powered lanterns and flashlights a couple of years ago, I was all over it. “We can use these in our house instead of electric lights!” I told to J. He was fine with that, so we eventually spent around $200 in solar flashlights and lanterns.

That turned out to be a non-economical, non-sustainable idea. Here’s why.

Solar lights don’t last very long.

Two of the flashlights have already quit working. Quit working. I’ve never seen a flashlight with a shorter life than these. There was nothing to do but throw them away. It’s not like you can change the batteries and make them work again. So we had to add yet more garbage to the ever-growing landfills.

The el-cheapo solar camping lantern, which was our first purchase, also died a few months ago. That was more of a case of you-get-what-you-pay-for than anything else. A-hem, and it probably didn’t help that we left it out in the rain one day and it turned out not to be as waterproof as the more expensive lanterns.

Oops. 

The charging mechanism can go haywire.

One of our $40 lanterns, which are the biggest and put off the most light, will no longer charge to its full capacity. It stays dim, no matter how long you charge it. The good news is, it makes a perfect nightlight to replace the other, completely broken lantern that B had been using before while he slept.

The lanterns won’t fully charge between autumn and spring.

Due to the earth orbiting around the sun, we recently began experiencing shorter days. Instead of fifteen or sixteen hours of daylight, we’re down to about eleven – and decreasing a bit more every day. To my chagrin, I discovered that the big lanterns won’t fully charge without at least twelve or thirteen hours of daylight.

The good news with that is that these same lanterns are able to be charged via an electric outlet or a car battery, as well. And since the light bulbs are LED, they require such a miniscule amount of energy to charge, the impact of charging them via electricity is negligible.

But there goes another one of my “good” ideas of not having to use any power from the grid. *Sigh.*

We’ve decided to buy a couple of lamps, one for downstairs and one for the loft, and light them with LED bulbs. We’ll have all the light we want, whenever we want.

Reversing Our Internet Decision

On a previous blog, I talked about my and Jerry’s decision not to have Internet service at home. On this blog, in a recent post, I said that we had changed our minds.

Well, we changed them back. I can’t say whether we will stick to this decision indefinitely, but for the foreseeable future, we will not have Internet service in our home. The reasons are several and varied.

1. Cost.

Decent Internet connection – and the only kinds available here are wireless and satellite – costs at least $50 a month. That’s $600 a year. That’s almost an entire month of groceries for our organic-eating family.

2. Connection. 

If we have Internet service, we will be YouTube watchers (especially B). Neither wireless nor satellite can be depended upon in these mountains to maintain a good enough connection for online video viewing not to be an exercise in frustration.

3. Addiction.

I might set a strict Internet-using schedule at home, but I’m not even sure I would stick to it. Understand, I’m not one of those who has to spent the first hour of her day on Facebook, or check her Twitter account every fifteen minutes, but it’s easy to get lost in a maze of clicking links and reading blog posts that don’t pertain to anything I’m doing, or want to do.

Then there’s J, who would spend hours at a time reading political news articles and forums if I let him. B, of course, could – and probably would – begin demanding more and more YouTube viewing. Internet in the home is a great temptation to waste time and engage in unhealthy behavior - namely, spending much more time inside than out. 

Keeping our Internet usage to three or so hours a week at the local library (while B watches an educational DVD) may drive some of our friends and family crazy. I have one friend who wasn’t happy when I told her that I don’t do Facebook. (WTH?!)

But guess what? We don’t base our lifestyle decisions on what our friends and family – and especially the world at large – think. We base it on what we feel God is calling us to do, and our goals as a family. 

Life Without Electricity: The Myth

Is life without electricity possible? For the past decade or so, I had truly hoped so, and even made it an ultimate goal to live without any need for electrical gadgets or appliances. When I saw this video last fall, my desire increased. It is an inspiring video, and I got super-inspired.

I know I’m not the only one out there who has harbored dreams of not only going “off-grid”, but completely eliminating the need for electricity altogether. But is that a realistic goal? Does the couple in the video really live without electricity?

They have a faucet and a toilet. While they do not have a washing machine, they must have some sort of tub in which to wash their clothes. I’m sorry to break the news to them, but electricity was used to make all of those things. It was also used to print the beautiful books that adorn the single beautiful bookcase, handcrafted, I believe, by the husband of the couple who live in this non-electric Tiny House.

Shortly after watching that video, I did an online search for “life without electricity.” Lo and behold, I encountered two blog posts where the bloggers explain how they live without electricity.

Hello! You cannot blog without electricity. Computers and Internet connection both require electricity. While those folks may indeed not be able to get online at home, they obviously do elsewhere. They are not really living without electricity.

Let me bring it home. To my home. We live at least two hours away from a health food store where we can buy organic food. It’s going to take at least three years before we are producing all of our own produce, so in the meantime we have to buy things in bulk and freeze some of it. A freezer requires electricity. Where we live, a car is a necessity. Manufacturing a car requires electricity; so does running it. Over time, the solar lanterns we bought and use for lighting are much more economical than buying candles. But they work via electricity.

The house we are going to have built next spring will require ceiling fans for air circulation (why? – I will answer that when I choose to reveal the whole Secret; i.e, what kind of house we have selected). And since we live in very humid area, we will have to run a dehumidifier or air conditioner sometimes, no matter what kind of house we live in. Electricity, electricity, electricity.

And what about all the stuff we order from Amazon? The supplements, materials for Benjamin’s amusement and education, food, occasional household goods – every single product involves electricity at some level, even if only in the printing of the label on a bottle and the shipping process.

Is it possible to live without electricity – totally and completely? They say that anything is possible, but how many people do you know are growing their own flax, cotton or hemp, or raising sheep, and making their own thread and weaving into fabric and sewing that into clothing, all by hand? How many people provide 100% of their own food, and either consume it all raw or use fire for cooking? How many people have homes where every single piece of furniture was made by hand, using old-fashioned, non-electric tools? Get my drift?

Today, electricity is a great part of what makes the world go ‘round. If that upsets the caveman/woman inside you, figure out how to reduce your electricity needs as much as you can. And then be happy that you have way more freedom, prosperity, and opportunities in your life than your grandparents did, thanks to electricity. 

Tiny House Pros And Cons

What are the pros and cons to living in a Tiny House? Is this really the home of the future, the most eco-friendly kind of house there is?

The way some Tiny House fanatics talk, you would think the answer is yes. And there are definite advantages to living in under four hundred square feet.

Advantages of a Tiny House

1. If you want to build it yourself, it doesn’t take nearly as long as building a modern-sized house.
2. Most people can cash-flow it, instead of having to take out a mortgage or otherwise borrow money.
3. The utility bills are ludricously small.
4. There is little space to clean.
5. You save time and money on maintenance and repair, because there is not a lot to maintain or repair.
6. They can be built on trailers so as to be moved whenever the owners want to move them.
7. You don’t have to walk fifteen feet from one end of the kitchen to another three or four times during meal preparation because everything is so close together.
8. If you gotta “go”, and go bad, the bathroom is always just a couple of steps away.

We didn’t originally plan to live in a Tiny House, but I realized after spending a few weekends in the twenty-one foot travel trailer we had bought and parked on our land before moving here that there was no way I was going to spend several months living out of it.

So we decided to live in the converted Tuff Shed we had built last fall so that we could begin collecting rainwater from its roof. A week after moving in, Jerry and I talked about keeping it as our permanent home. But however attractive the advantages to Tiny living might be, over the past few months we have discovered several distinct disadvantages of Tiny Houses for our family.

Disadvantages of living in a Tiny House

1. Sleeping lofts are uncomfortable in hot weather. In the Deep South, where we dwell, summers are hot – and this year, miserably humid to boot. Most Tiny Houses, especially those built for families, have sleeping lofts – including ours. Warm air rises. Benjamin’s bedroom has been very uncomfortable many nights this summer. If it were a normal summer where the temps rise to near and beyond 100 degrees every day, he would be hot every night. Of course, our “sleeping loft” is really a second story, which exacerbates the “warm air rises” problem.
2. In hot-summer climates, a lot of energy is required to keep a wood-frame Tiny House cool. There is only so much you can do to keep such a dwelling cool (an earthbag Tiny House, having some thermal mass, would be able to be kept somewhat cooler, but one would still need supplemental cooling). How is running the A/C almost 24/7 eco-friendly?
3. It’s not that great at holding heat in, either. Our heating bill this past winter was only 1/3 the cost of what it had been in our suburban house that was seven times the size of this Tuff Shed (if the bill had been proportionate, it would have been 1/7 the cost of the suburban house heating bill).
4. There is no room to spread out in inclement weather. When it’s either too cold or too miserably humid to be outside, I can’t escape into another room to play the keyboard, sing to a CD, or write. Benjamin has no room to run around. Can you say, “Crazy parents”?
5. There is no room for hobbies. Jerry has no space to set up his art easel (part of the reason to gain financial independence and quit one’s job is to have time and energy to engage in fulfilling activities). I have no room to dance. Etcetera.
6. Storage is at a premium. Our clothes “closet” consists of two shelves on the taller of our two metal shelves. It’s hard to keep our items tidy, and most of our clothing is in large storage boxes. Go ahead and tell us just to get rid of all our extra stuff we’re not wearing. I’ll send you the bills as we are forced to buy things to replace that which we had in storage until you got in our business and convinced us to get rid of something we would need in the future. FYI, we have each edited our wardrobe down by half over the past couple of years. And I never had nearly the amount of clothing as the average American woman. So there.
7. We can’t sit together as a family to eat. Only two people can sit at a time at the dining room table.
8. Jerry and I don’t have our own bedroom. At least an entire floor separates us from our son at night, rather than a curtain as was the case in the travel trailer. But, still...Also, we have to move furniture in order to unfold our “mattress” in order to go to bed at night, and fold it back up and put furniture back when we get up in the morning. It’s gotten old, people.
9. When someone goes “number two”, everybody else gets to smell it. Thank God for vinegar, which is a good odor killer when you spray it undiluted, but not as good as it needs to be. Of course, this problem may have more to do with the fact that our bathroom “door” is merely a curtain, rather than a real door. Still, odors fade after so many feet, but when you’re living in a Tiny House there aren’t enough feet.
10. Our cat is always underfoot. If I’ve told Benjamin once, I’ve told him a hundred times: it’s a cat’s prerogative to be in your way. However, in a Tiny House, there is almost no other place for him (the cat) to be.  (By the way, we also get to smell the cat’s feces every time he lets it go in his litter box.)

***

When I got into watching Tiny House videos about nine months ago, I thought the concept was really cool – to the extent that I wanted to adopt it for our household. Having lived in a Tiny House for about six months, I have come to realize that for some people, some families, the glamour of living Tiny does not extend any further than the computer screen displaying the YouTube Tiny House videos.

If you are single or married without children, have no hobbies that require indoor space, are willing to live a real minimalist lifestyle, and live in a moderate climate that can be kept comfortable in the summer without running the A/C all the time, a Tiny House may be a good, eco-friendly and economical choice for you. If not, seek other alternatives. The choice we have finally settled on – and yes, it’s eco-friendly even though it will be far from Tiny - will be revealed soon.

Until then, keep life simple!

Why I Am Not A Minimalist

All of a sudden, “minimalism” is a hot word around the Internet. New blogs and videos about the concept are popping up every week. You can find several books about becoming minimalist on Amazon.

I, too, have used that buzz word. But I have decided to refrain heretofore.

Well. Before I go on, I suppose I should give a brief definition of “minimalism” for those handful who have yet to encounter the term. Minimalism is a lifestyle philosophy in which you live with only those things which you absolutely need. One might set Henry David Thoreau, during his experiment at Walden Pond, as the quintessential minimalist.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? So, why have I decided to eschew the word?

1. Minimalism is a religion.

Think about it. Most religions end with the three letters “-ism.” Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism.

Okay, so I’m a little bit tongue-in-cheek here. But hang with me while I go through the analogy, and you might actually end up agreeing.

Religions provide a set of rules to follow in order to live a life that makes some higher power happy, and/or that makes you happy. Most specifically deal with how to escape Earth and make it to heaven (I beg my readers not to confuse religion with a relationship with our heavenly Father. They are not the same thing).

Minimalism teaches that in order to be happy, you must get rid of everything you do not absolutely need. No hanging onto clothes that you might wear once in a great while, no more chairs in the house than needed for the members of that household, no keeping your teenage diaries. It teaches you to spend no money unless you absolutely need a thing, to have no clutter about.

What’s wrong with those rules? Nothing, when taken at face value. Nothing, if those rules fit your personal bent. Ay, there lies the rub. Religion tries to make everyone conform to the same set of rules, regardless of individual temperaments, giftings or abilities.

“But I read so-an-so’s blog that said minimalism doesn’t have to mean anything so austere.” That’s because so-and-so isn’t really a minimalist.

*SHOCK!*

Look, if you don’t believe in reincarnation, you’re not really a Buddhist. If you don’t believe premarital sex is a sin, you’re not really a Christian. If you don’t believe you have to pray five times a day toward Mecca in order to please Allah, you’re not really a Muslim. If you have joined any of those particular religions, but changed some of the rules because you didn’t like them, then you basically created your own new religion.

Ditto for quasi-minimalists who…well, now I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s attack that in the next section.

2. The word “minimalism” has been abused and misused.

I am all for sticking to a budget, decluttering, and downsizing anything from a bookshelf to an entire house. But just because you’ve become a decluttering freak doesn’t make you a minimalist. A minimalist by definition is going to have a boring house and, quite frankly, a boring life (at least to outsiders; contemplative people who get a thrill out of meditating all day don’t think such activity boring at all).

The aforementioned Thoreau was a true minimalist – at least, during the period in which he lived at Walden Pond. His house was practically bare, and his only major activity was tending a garden.

If you have an uncluttered house and refuse to buy an iPad, but have a bunch of kids whom you regularly take on entertaining and educational excursions around the city, you are not a minimalist. You are giving your children experiences they don’t absolutely need (and therefore spending money unnecessarily, breaking one of the cardinal rules of minimalism).

If you have only one chair and one fork in your large apartment, but often fly back and forth between the United States and Australia, you are not a minimalist. You do not need to travel (besides, a true minimalist will be trying his best to reduce his carbon footprint).

If you live in a 5,000 square-foot house that is completely void of clutter and has only a couple of pieces of furniture in every room - and you have fewer than eight children, you are not a minimalist. (Five thousand square feet? Come on!)

If you have a well-followed blog because its domain name uses the buzz word “minimalist”, then put together a “simple living” course for which you charge $149 dollars a head, you are not a minimalist. You are the typical exploitive Internet Marketer (a real minimalist is not greedy for gain).

3. God is not a minimalist.

Ever read any books about people who have seen heaven? Sure, probably one or two have made things up to sell a few books. But I have reason to believe that the handful I have read were written by people who have had honest-to-goodness visions of heaven and wrote the books to encourage people of faith about what the future holds for them.

In these books, God does not hold back. He has provided a mansion for everyone who arrives there, and the mansion as well as its surroundings is loaded with accessories, décor, furnishings, etc., etc., that represent your deepest desires and personal tastes. One author has even seen a heavenly amusement park and movie theaters!

Say the authors of those books have made all that stuff up. Okay, so read the Bible instead. The streets of heaven are paved with gold, the apostle John wrote in the book of Revelation. If the streets are paved with gold, do you really think Father has held back in luxury and lavishness anywhere else?

I’m not suggesting that you go out and get into debt so you can crowd your bookshelves, dressers and side tables with pretty knick-knacks. I am simply pointing out the fact that it is not evil to have things, including things that are there solely to make an otherwise empty corner or space beautiful.

4. Minimalism doesn’t fit many people’s lifestyle goals and/or personalities.

Some women – and men – thrive in a home decorated country style. Ever seen a home like that? Let me give you a hint: there is “stuff” everywhere. The tops of the kitchen cabinets are lined with old-fashioned crocks, jars and dishes, and there will be a sideboard in the dining room packed with all sorts of quaint dishes and other accessories. That’s not to mention the numerous knick-knacks and accessories that will be found in the rest of the house.

If someone wants to dust – or pay somebody to dust – all those things, more power to ‘em! 

Then there are homesteaders. As one of those, I can tell you one of the most important Homesteading Commandments: save everything. While I don’t literally save everything, neither do I throw out or recycle every single supplement bottle or jar, empty milk jug, or piece of junk mail. They often come in handy for a variety of uses. We refuse to follow that minimalist rule of getting rid of “just in case items” – because often, those items turn out to be useful in a few months to a couple of years! And because we did not adhere to the minimalist religion, we did not have to go out and spend more money to buy another thing.

I have dozens of “just in case” flower pots in the garden shed, and row covers that I have not yet even opened. Jerry has a variety of tools. We are not going to get rid of these items because somebody wants us all to live like hermits in a cave.

So, why am I even bringing it up? I – and the others who want to/need to have a lot of things – should simply just not call ourselves minimalists, right? My problem with this facet of the anti-possession religion is that those who think they are minimalists try to make everyone else who definitely is not, look or feel as if she is doing something wrong.

Gee, maybe I should have written all this under the “religion” heading.

The long and the short of it…

I am not a minimalist, and do not want to be part of that camp. I am all for simple living, but that does not need to mean living in a home with mostly bare space, obsessing over the number of things you own, or feeling guilty about how little you may use or enjoy those things.

A Compelling Reason To Go Off-Grid

My big plan for when we moved to our rural home (where we now live) was to be off-grid immediately with both energy and water. In fact, last fall after we bought a travel trailer, parked it up on our land and started visiting it every other weekend, I dug in my heels and made Jerry buy a generator to produce our electricity.

Have I ever told you I don’t like noise? I don’t like noise. A generator makes a lot of noise, even if it’s not very close to you.

If you used to read my former blog, or have read my book Hatching The Nest Egg, you know that one thing I do like is saving money.

A gas generator eats money like it was ice cream. Two weekends after using it, I did the math and realized that if we used the thing during the summer when the A/C would be going most of the time, we would be spending as much money to cool a 21-foot travel trailer as we used to spend to cool our 2159 square-foot house with central air! We’re talking around $200 per month.

Not only that, in order for me to use the Vita-Mix early in the morning, that meant for Jerry having to go out and start the generator in the dark, and in very cold temperatures (we moved at the end of January). And besides that, the generator was noisy. Oh, did I say that already?

With some reluctance, I agreed to go on the grid with energy until we got settled – until we built our permanent house, really, which I was hoping would be less than a year.

But one thing bothered me about solar photovoltaic, and that was the price. Even for a small system, it would take something like eight years to recoup our investment, compared to paying the local electric co-op $40-$50 a month. So I did a bit more research on the issue, and found a blog post explaining how extremely inefficient and expensive solar photovoltaic energy is compared to grid energy. I told Jerry that I now understood his reluctance to use solar for electricity production. He is much better than I about not saying “I told you so,” but I could see it in his eyes. I rationalized that our severe cutback in our energy needs and subsequent usage was enough to do our part to save the planet.

I change my mind

Now, I want to get off-grid with energy ASAP. I don’t care how much the initial investment is.

Why? Every month, the local electric co-op sends out a publication. In the most recent one, they talk out of both sides of their mouth. At the beginning, they have a blurb about some legislation passed in Oklahoma that will make it easier for electricity companies to diversify their sources of energy (e.g., wind, hydro). Then there was a column singing the praises of that bill having been passed.

Flip through a couple of pages, and what do I find? A long-ish article explaining why the Oklahoma electric co-ops use coal. Okay, fine. I don’t mind if someone wants to explain their position. My problem with the article is that they ignore the two biggest problems with using coal: the pollution it costs, and the lives that the mining of it impacts in sometimes tragic ways.

Cleaner burning coal

Everyone knows that when coal is burned, it produces black smoke. Forget the whole stupid carbon dioxide-global warming debate. My concern is lung cancer and other fun diseases like that. The author of the article brings up this fact, but immediately blows it off by stating that people have invented cleaner burning coal. And then goes on to lament the fact that such coal is beyond Oklahoma’s budget right now, how sad.

Not to mention the fact that there is no truly “clean” burning coal. A person may be able to reduce some of the chemicals and carbon dioxide going into the sky, but it will never burn as clean as nuclear power, or be as clean as wind.

The tragedies of strip mining

The article completely ignores that the way in which some of the coal in this country is mined is via mountaintop removal. Now, from my understanding, southeast Oklahoma coal comes from underground mines. Be that as it may, the fact is this dependence on coal does have a negative impact on folks elsewhere in the country. 

Let’s set aside the sad destruction of the beauty of this country that causes, and consider the people. The people who live in the areas where mountaintop removal goes on are very poor, and cannot afford to relocate. Some of these people are killed in mining-related landslides, many other seriously injured and without the money to take care of these injuries properly. Houses are sometimes destroyed. And these mountain residents hardly have the financial resources to pursue and legal recourse against the mining companies.

So that gives me an ethical problem with coal overall. Besides, how healthy is coal mining, anyway?

I want off-grid…YESTERDAY

I got mad. Are you kidding me? Rationalizing your determination to stick with coal by ignoring two huge ethical and moral problems with it?

My “compelling reason” to go off-grid is that the electric co-ops of Oklahoma are practicing deception in order to make a few extra bucks. (I haven’t even mentioned that we are paying $.06 more per kilowatt hour for coal energy than we did for wind energy in Plano, TX.)

I don’t care how much off-grid solar will cost us. Three thousand dollars or so is a small price to pay to know that I am no longer contributing to the pollution of this planet or potential death of a resident of Appalachia every time I turn on my blender.