The Wake of Simplifying

You will leave a wake in your process of simplifying.

The effects of getting the excess gone in your material and fiscal worlds will have far reaching impacts.  Your family will be affected, and likely your friends as well.  Your choices will be reshaped and your future will be redefined.

Your family that lives with you will have a tremendous benefit from a less stressful environment to call home.  When Team Family buckles down and gets serious about becoming debt-free, you can expect a deeper bond with your loved ones.  When you explain why all the excess toys can be donated to less fortunate children, your child can learn to become a better, more compassionate global citizen.  A family that is united against over-consumption and waste is a powerful force indeed.  (Just ask Bea Johnson of Zero Waste Home.)

Your friends will likely gain inspiration from the swath you cleared out of your upstairs or garage.  They will be enraptured with the changes in your home, and how serene it feels compared to their own.  You may be as I have been, and have friends commenting that they will return to their home and start cleaning out their cabinets that same evening as the visit!  Knowing that you are helping your friends come to grip with their own excess and become agents for change is humbling and exhilarating.

Your choices will be altered over time.  When my husband and I started to simplify, we could not conceive of retiring early, or a day where both of us could work part-time and still make ends meet.  Yet, part-time employment is where we are today, and we are far from poverty level living with God's grace and frugality.

The message of simplification is not a fad.  There is something wonderful contained within its depths.  It is life-changing to divest yourself of excess and consciously choose to reduce consumption, and thereby waste.  Never once in nearly nine years have I regretted beginning this path.  And, there is no way I would want to go back to conspicuous consumption having tasted the benefits of simplifying.

What do you want to leave in your wake?