Simplicity

This article is from The Business School of Happiness.
Brother and sister, Dian Griesel (49) and Thomas J. Griesel (56), two successful serial entrepreneurs, are the co-founders and co-presidents of The Business School of Happiness. Enjoy I love there ariticles!! :)mjtou

Simplicity

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quick-sands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not flounder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.” Henry D. Thoreau, Walden, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

We live in a totally commercialized world where in order to be a good citizen, even a good American, we need to consume. Buying more and more and even more has become a way of life.

Do we own our stuff or does it own us? Does our stuff make us any happier or does it have a tendency to stress us out? Why did the housing boom create bigger and bigger houses? Did we need more space to fit all our stuff or did a larger home give us room to accumulate even more?

Taking an inventory of all your stuff is a very good endeavor and thinning out the excess is even better. What do you really need? How many cars? Are you still making payments on cars you rarely drive? What have you had stashed in the attic, garage or closet for years and never touched. Are you saving things for some special, still unknown event in the future? Or, perhaps it would be too painful to admit that you have purchased or accumulated so many useless items. Start eliminating your excess today. Have a garage sale and whatever doesn’t sell give away to friends or donate to a charity. Whatever is left that you can’t even give away or donate haul off to the landfill. It’s an enlightening and liberating experience.

Thoreau had a point that is just as valid today as it was then, simplify your life and you will be happier.

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