[Following on from the last few From the Archive Friday posts, we have another on the topic of Simplicity, this time looking at some steps that we in the West can take to live more simply. This article originally appeared on the Servants website in April 2004.]

Advertising uses the images of a deeply desired social life that consumption can’t provide and links those images to the things it can provide. Yet people want and need basic things: autonomy; control; purpose; intimacy; love; connection; relaxation. That’s what really drives people and satisfies them. In this piece I want to lay some pavement towards living more simply.

Buying less and buying cheaper

Buy in bulk with your friends and cut down on packaging, or join – or start – a food co-op. Meanwhile use half as much product as you usually do for as many things as you can. Start with shampoo, detergent and toothpaste, then get creative and see how many others you can come up with. Half as much is sometimes twice as good and always twice as thrifty. If you jot down a list by the fridge of the things you throw away because they were never used, you’ll get a better idea of what works and doesn’t in your household.

Don’t buy for status, and always ask: How many hours will I have to work to pay for this? New cars, for example, lose 20% of their value as they’re driven off the saleyard, and over 30% by the end of two years.

The biggest shopping trap must be ‘It was on sale.’ How many times have each of us fallen for this? If it wasn’t something you identified as a need, you didn’t save money, you spent money. Learn this mantra: ‘It’s not a bargain if I don’t need it.’

De-clutter and avoid waste

You really don’t need all that stuff. Get out from under the burden of so much stuff and remove the stuff-barrier keeping you apart from other people, from God and even from yourself. Get rid of it. Pick a room and attack it. Have three piles: one for keeps, one for trash and one for charity (or a garage sale).

‘I could use this someday’ doesn’t count, and if you really can’t part with anything, imagine your house is on fire and you have ten minutes to save your important things. It will soon become clear which items mean the most. One trick for purging the urge to splurge is to go on a treasure hunt in your own house! Whether it’s a vase or a shirt you never wear, see if you can find something you forgot you even had!

When you shop, take baskets or bags (eg a hemp basket!) to the supermarket so you won’t end up with an armful of plastic. Avoid items that are excessively packaged. Monitor yourself. By discovering patterns in how you live, what you buy, what you consume and what you do with the by-products, you can locate and minimise your own waste.

Sharing

Make your rarely used possessions available to others who can use them. A neighbourhood or church lending library of large tools is easy to set up and eliminates the duplication and expense of everyone having their own rarely used tools. Do the same for other items that you rarely use. Why should a street of 20 houses have 20 lawnmowers and 20 electric drills (or 50 Disney videos, for that matter)?

Join (or start) a community garden. Some friends and I (actually we mostly didn’t know each other then but we are friends now because of it) set up a community garden in the grounds of a local church. We practise organic growing techniques, run workshops to teach others, and get to know each other’s ideas on other community initiatives. We’ve learnt skills – oh, and we’ve eaten really well.

Don’t buy that

Don’t tell K-Mart I said this, but simplicity is not only about buying the cheapest. The cheapest is often not good quality and will wear out. This increases waste and you’ll have to buy again. In the case of food, the cheapest items are often overpackaged and bad for your health.

Convenience is the enemy of simplicity. What’s more, the cheapest options are often produced in unsustainable ways. Unethical labour practices, high resource consumption and passing on the cost to the environment in the form of pollution are all ways to produce an item cheaply!

Instead, simplicity involves finding the shortest, simplest route between the earth, the hands and the mouth. Sometimes you’ll have to spend more to live simply! Exploring fair-trade products, eco-shopping and gardening are good ways to start. Go organic. The herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilisers used by large agri-business creates an ecosystem that becomes more and more dependent on these things and less able to sort itself out naturally. Don’t encourage them.

Buy Local

The cheap product freighted in from overseas contributes to oil slicks and air pollution in ways that local products do not. Local small businesses could do with your support. In buying from the small player you contribute to the local economy and help resist the whole country looking like a series of malls with the same 50 shops repeatedly stamped across them.

Small changes can make a BIG difference. In Part II I will tackle the areas of your life where big changes can happen.

[Murray Sheard coordinated Servants in NZ for some years and now works with TEAR Fund in Auckland]

 

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