This week I started reading Joshua Becker's eBook Simplify: 7 Guiding Principles to Help Anyone Declutter their Home and Life. Right from the get-go, it made me realize how different the aha moments are that inspire us to change the course of our lives. In this post, you'll see that the tipping points can range from something as simple as a conversation to something as complex as a life-changing health diagnosis. For me, my "why" was a self-diagnosed existential crisis and the realization … [Read more...]
What is Downshifting? How to Transition into Simple Living
I've been driving manual transmission cars since I was 16, but I had only heard the terms "downshift" and "downshifting" related to gears. A couple years ago, I was delighted to discover the same terms can apply to our lifestyles. Googling "define: downshifting" gives a #2 definition of: Change a financially rewarding but stressful career or lifestyle for a less pressured and less highly paid but more fulfilling one. Since I just quit my corporate 9-to-5 job last week, now is the perfect … [Read more...]
The “Why” Behind Gandhi’s Simple Living Transformation at Age 23
Everyone knows Gandhi from his later years — when he was “Mahatma” which means “great soul” or “the great-souled one." But, what path did he follow to get there? Was he born into a lifestyle of simple living, or did he make an intentional choice? Naturally, I decided to give myself a crash course on Gandhi. You could spend a lifetime studying Gandhi, but I wanted to focus on just a couple aspects of his life: What were his early years like?, and What was the "Why" behind his … [Read more...]