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Voluntary Simplicity: Life
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Voluntary simplicity is not a limiting lifestyle. Actually, choosing to live “consciously and deliberately” will give you freedom… more quality time… more discretionary money… and more appreciation and enjoyment of every aspect of your life.
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Voluntary simplicity is where Green meets Gandhi. It's the crossroads where sustainability, quality of life, and spirituality intersect. "Outwardly simple, inwardly rich" is the movement's credo. Rather than pursue "more," simplifiers say, be content with "enough." Rather than long hours at a stultifying job, discover your "real work" then downsize your desires to do more of it. As an added perk, your new, simpler lifestyle will be healthier for you and the planet.
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In 1993, the Roys founded the Northwest Earth Institute in Portland to spread the ways and means of a lifestyle known as voluntary simplicity. Living off their savings, the Roys have donated their time to the Earth Institute ever since, teaching individuals, large businesses or communities the way to save time and money and promote a slower, more satisfying and more sustainable life.
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The essence of voluntary simplicity is living in a way what is outwardly simple and inwardly rich. This way of lie embraces frugality of consumption, a strong sense of environmental urgency, a desire to return to living and working environments which are of a more human scale, and an intention to realize our higher human potential -- both psychological and spiritual -- in community with others. The driving forces behind voluntary simplicity range from acutely personal concerns to critical national problems. The appeal of simple living appears to be extraordinarily widespread, even gathering sympathy from among those who are not presently attempting to simplify their own life patterns. Voluntary simplicity is important because it may foreshadow a major transformation in the goals and values of the United States in the coming decades. Although a social movement still in its early stages, its practical and ethical positions seem well enough developed to permit useful analysis of this way of life.
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Voluntary simplicity is a philosophy. Often called compassionate living, it is a conscious choice to simplify your life and a deliberate downshifting to create the life and home environment that fit you and your family.
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There is no special virtue to the phrase "voluntary simplicity"--it is merely a label and a somewhat awkward label at that. Still, it does acknowledge explicitly that simpler living integrates both inner and outer aspects of life into an organic and purposeful whole.
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