THE SIMPLE LIFE

Eradicating poverty involves changing the lives of the non-poor. Gerald Iversen, director of Alternatives, an organization which promotes ‘voluntary simplicity’, explains.

Living simply is not about ‘living on the cheap’. It’s more than frugality, far from being a tightwad, and surely not about being a miser. Rather, it’s a journey to find more meaning, more joy, more fun in life by removing the barrier of material goods that keeps us apart from other people – and even from ourselves.

VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY IS BASED ON FIVE 'LIFE PRINCIPLES'

• do justice
• nurture people, not things
• learn from the world community
• care for the earth
• don’t conform*

Living more simply is about seeing our lives as extravagant, even out-of-control, and deciding what to do little by little, day-by-day, week-by-week to cut down on over-consumption. Every time you go to buy something, to use something, try thinking: Do I really need this? Do I buy the car I like, the one that will impress?

Or do I buy the economical one…the one that will get me around using less gas? Can I live without a car, using alternative transport? For every negative, wasteful habit, there is a positive, constructive one (or at least one that’s less wasteful). It’s not simple – but it is well worth it.

Gerald Iversen is National Coordinator of the US-based movement Alternatives 
e-mail: [email protected].
Web site: http://www.simpleliving.org/
* from Living More with Less by Doris Janzen Longacre.