Adopting simplicity and minimalism for a happy life

Sometime back an acquaintance shared how she was seriously disturbed in her workplace. Frustrated and not able to understand on what to do, she cajoled her husband to go on a shopping spree to de-stress. They got quite a number of new items which added to their existing cluttered home; the available free space was now on further decline. They had no idea of where to keep things further and this led to new confusion and stress.

Often we are not contented to what we already have and have strong urge to acquire things further. We think we are going to be happy with these acquisitions but in reality we never are. This is the problem most of us face as we are not attuned to the idea of simple living and nurture habits of minimalism. As we discussed the predicament of this acquaintance and her mantra to strive to keep away her stress and frustration by going on a shopping spree, we felt she was not alone in this world who tried to use this method.

All the products that we keep on acquiring in the backdrop of stark consumerism actually contributes to further cluttering of our homes, our workplaces and most importantly our lives; it complicates our mind and our mindset.? We will find clothes in our wardrobes which we have not worn for years; we will find cups and plates in our kitchen, many of them still new, which we have hardly got the opportunity to use; we have so many other materials in our homes and workplaces which remain tucked with our even forgetting that we have them. Isn’t all these a paradox? The more we acquire, the more we feel elated but have you ever reflected and thought that it leads to losing yourself and your mental space to the forces of consumerist culture and experience a steady erosion of human values.

Well, we strongly feel the time has come to free ourselves from the bondage of the habit to keep on acquiring without limits and adopting ways which clutters not only our mind but our entire ecosystem. Definitely, simplicity and minimalism are the key to our JoyfulTalisman.?

Munazah Shah: Vedabhyas, let us start today’s conversation with this profound of quote of Mahatma Gandhi, who said, “Non-possession is allied to non-stealing. A thing not originally stolen must nevertheless be classified as stolen property if we possess it without needing it. Possession implies provision for the future. A seeker after Truth, a follower of the law of Love, cannot hold anything against tomorrow. God never stores for tomorrow. He never creates more than what is strictly needed for the moment. If, therefore, we repose faith in His Providence, we should rest assured that He will give us every day our daily bread, meaning everything that we require....” (Mind of Mahatma Gandhi)

Here Bapu strongly underlines that if we possess things that we don’t need, it is akin to stealing. Having too many things which we do not need at all means denying someone else those items who really need them. Most importantly, it actually leads to cluttering and unhappiness.

Vedabhyas, if you remember, in our book, Pathways of Global Transformation: Conversation with Bapu, we discussed this aspect of simplicity and minimalism at length. Here, Vedabhyas, let me share with our readers our message from the book:

Material possessions and happiness seems to have inverse relations. This will have to be reversed and we should make conscious attempts to practice minimalistic sustainable life. Through this practice we will be able to focus on what is truly important for our lives and not run after the unimportant. We feel that when we unclutter ourselves and our material possessions, we will start having more time for ourselves, have greater engagement with not only our close people but with also with nature. Overall, we will find that a whole new space opened for us to live a contended life.

Vedabhyas Kundu: Munazah, you have beautifully set the tone for today’s conversation. In the context of what you are talking, it would be apt to remember the famous book of E F Schumacher, Small is Beautiful. Here are the important points of Schumacher for all of us to ponder and reflect. He said:

This dominant modern belief has an almost irresistible attraction as it suggests that the faster you get one desirable thing the more securely do you attain another. It is doubly attractive because it completely by-passes the whole question of ethics: there is no need for renunciation or sacrifice: on the contrary!

Munazah, Schumacher beautifully captures how we develop the strong urge to go on acquiring things we may not even need and in this process do not mind to throw our ethics and morality to the bin. For instance, a family of four husband, wife, son and daughter-in-law, all may aim to acquire four cars and in the process, may take help of unethical means to acquire the needed money. But will this family or individuals in the family be happy with just the acquisition of these four vehicles. The answer is a definite no. Schumacher is very clear in this aspect as he stresses that the foundations of peace and happiness cannot be laid by universal prosperity. He says, “Such prosperity, if attainable at all is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man.”

So, Munazah, the question is what is the way out? It is here the pillars of our concept of JoyfulTalisman, simplicity and minimalism comes to the fore.

Munazah ?Shah: Yes, Vedabhyas, definitely simplicity and minimalism are important mantras to unclutter our lives. Here I would like to share these beautiful lines from Satish Kumar’s book, Elegant Simplicity:

When I speak of simplicity I don’t mean a life of deprivation, hair-shirt living or hardship. I believe in a good life, in beautiful things, in arts and crafts, and in sufficiency. I believe in joy and celebration. This is why I put the word ‘elegant’ before ‘simplicity’. Simplicity is and should be elegant. We all need and should have a comfortable and pleasant life. But at the moment our complicated lives are no longer comfortable. We are sacrificing comfort for the sake of convenience, and the pursuit of convenience has led us astray.

Satish Kumar is apt as when we start to simplify our lives, we start to make it uncomplicated.? The simpler our lives are, the more we move towards the path of our own well-being. Vedabhyas, when we are focused on simplicity, we are making things easy and enjoyable; we are actually reducing the number of choices that we are making. We are also reducing our time spent on non-essential activities. As we are talking about Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful, let me quote this from his book, “The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom. It is also the antithesis of freedom and peace, every increase of needs tends to increase one's dependence on outside forces over which one cannot havecontrol, and therefore increases existential fear. Only by a reduction of needs can one promote a genuine reduction in those tensions which are the ultimate causes of strife and war.”

Here Vedabhyas, to make it easy can we nurture the habit of being focused and identifying on what is important for us and then start eliminating all those things which are not important. And finally, here is a beautiful mantra of Lao Tzu who said,?? “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.”?

Vedabhyas Kundu:Munazah, linked to the essence of simplicity is the need to nurture minimalism. By being minimalistic we are trying to be strategic on what we chose to do. For instance, it could even taking some extreme measures like living in a small space. When we start to learn on how to practice minimalism, we are being aware on what we actually keep in our lives and what we want to keep out. We will also be aware about the things which are of interest to us and we are passionate about, and what we want from our life. Definitely, minimalism helps us create time and space for ourselves. It will help us to self-introspect and self-reflect, and help us to know ourselves in a better way.

I think Munazah, minimalism is not just about de-cluttering, to me it is actually a lifestyle which helps us to connect with the purpose of our lives and strive to make it more meaningful. Here I would like to stress that simplicity and minimalism is not about deprivation, it is about making value-added choices of developing deep connections with nature and environment and practising sustainability. I think these ideas are aptly encapsulated by this quote of His Holiness The Dalai Lama who pointed out, “If one’s life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements.”?

As we conclude this conversation, we strongly feel that to live a life of satisfaction, happiness and joy, we need to adopt simplicity and minimalism in the real sense. This is the only way out in this chaotic and overwhelming world that we live today. Initially, adopting such a lifestyle may seem challenging, so we could start by incorporating small changes in our daily lives. Once we start realizing the positive changes that these are bringing in our lives, we could explore more options of simplicity and minimalism.

Finally, Mahatma Gandhi gave us incredibly important prescriptions for simple and sustainable living. :

“From day to day I realize the fact that nature produces every moment the amount needed at that moment and no more. We fail to take count of this fact consciously or unconsciously. This failure is responsible for the universal spectacle of men suffering from surfeit here and from want there.” – (The Diary of Mahadev Desai, Vol. I, p. 168, 17-6-1932)

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