Voluntary Simplicity: Reducing Ecological Footprint and By-Passing the Global Economy

by Rodney Vlais

I have been conducting workshops and study circles on voluntary simplicity for only four years, and so cannot claim to be an expert. I also have a lot furtherer to go on my own pathway towards simplicity - my ecological footprint is less than the average Australian, but is still higher than what it needs to be.

Despite this, I wish to share with you some of the things that I focus on in the voluntary simplicity web. It's easiest for me to do this by describing what I include in a typical workshop or study circle series on voluntary simplicity, so that you get a sense of the topics and practical exercises covered.

After some initial ice-breaking and connecting exercises, I generally begin voluntary simplicity courses by providing a bit of information about the simplicity movement, how voluntary simplicity is different from involuntary simplicity, that this is not a glorification of material poverty nor a nostalgic return to the past, and that it is a radical act of individual transformative change related to other efforts at a more systemic level.

I follow with processes to help participants prioritise what is really important to them in their lives. This is more than an intellectual exercise, as it involves an awareness of one's deepest yearnings.

When there is time, this is done by a guided visual meditation over about 30 minutes, where I invite participants to image and dream about the conditions in their lives in which they feel the most alive, joy, purpose, connection, etc. This is followed by discussions concerning how participants can, on an emotional and spiritual as well as intellectual level, remain connected to what is important to them, to their values and passions, etc.

This is a very important part of the workshops / study circles, as moving towards a life of simplicity can be difficult at times (and easy at other times) - we are constantly conditioned in all sorts of spheres to betray a true balance in our lives and to follow our consumerist and competitive addictions. Knowing what is most important to us, knowing our yearnings and passions, on more than an intellectual level, provides us with the fire to keep focusing on simplicity when making the changes become difficult.

I then invite a discussion on social transformative change, raising questions concerning the ways in which we can heal our relationship with the Earth, and work towards vibrant, diverse communities. I do this to broaden our focus beyond the personal reasons for simplifying our lives, to show that simplicity is very important from the perspectives of social justice, ecological sustainability and future generations. Without a focus on the need for simplicity on a broader scale, the movement can be in danger of becoming another individualistic fad that is disconnected from the bigger picture of the need for transformative change in our economic, social and governance systems.

Indeed, in deep simplicity we discover that our inner desires to simplify our lives are reflected in our yearnings to heal our relationship with the Earth - we find a sacred space where the outer and inner reflect the same energies and flows. Given sufficient time, I draw upon exercises from the Work that Reconnects - outlined in Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown's book "Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World" - for participants to express this sense of sacred interdependence.

I then discuss different broad pathways of simplicity - that there are different journeys that people will follow. Some decide that, by decreasing their consumption and spending they can afford to spend less time in the paid workforce and achieve a greater balance in their lives now. Others decide that the reduced spending allows them to pay off their debts quicker, etc.

The main point is that there is no one outcome of simplicity - it will depend on people's circumstances and objectives. However, I emphasise that the cornerstone of simplicity - whichever pathway is taken - is reduced levels of material consumption. This is necessary for people to achieve a better balance in their lives, to allow more time for our yearnings, to reduced the industrialised world's oppression of the Majority (Third) World, to heal Humankind's relationship with the Earth, to allow space for us to become connected with our Dreaming, and to meet our responsibilities towards future generations.

I then talk about budgeting, saving and ethical investing. With respect to budgeting, we discuss the use of expenditure diaries where one can record all spendings in pre-determined categories across each week, fortnight or month. This way we know where our spending is going, helping us to find areas where we can cut down on. Spending goals can then be set within each of the expenditure categories.

With respect to ethical investments, I discuss some of the very basics of ethical investing (basics only as I am no financial adviser). We discuss how even small savings can compound over time - that saving is not just for the wealthy. I emphasise the importance of ethically/socially responsible investments, ethical superannuation funds, and community-owned banks in terms of using our money to work towards transformative social change (see, for example, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad's Ethical Investment Trust at www.caa.org.au/EIT, or Australian Ethical Investment Ltd at www.austethical.com.au).

We then focus on how to reduce material consumption / spending across a range of areas - food, clothing, power and other household costs, transport, etc. Usually participants are able to come up with their own ideas and current practices that can be shared with others. I inform participants of resources that they can use to calculate their individual ecological footprints.

Ways of deconditioning ourselves away from consumerism, and tips to disobey our consumerist urges, are discussed. This gets very concrete - specific skills are discussed concerning how to resist the urge to buy yet another product that we know will not be used in two weeks time. We spend a good bit of time on this if we can, so that people feel confident in their skills to resist unnecessary / unwanted purchases, and to not buy into the effects of consumerist cultural conditioning.

We then move on to the issue of work, drawing from the book "Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. I start off by showing participants how to work out their Real Paid Working Hours (RPWH) - the number of hours per week that are taken up by paid work. This includes not only one's contracted working hours, but also paid overtime, unpaid overtime, commuting to and from work, taking children to and from childcare, periods outside of working hours that are lost due to work-related tiredness or stress, etc. Often participants with full-time jobs find that their RPWH figure is in the sixties or more.

Participants can use their RPWH calculation to help determine the extent to which their lives are in balance. The greater the degree to which our paid work meets our yearnings / needs / priorities identified through processes referred to earlier, the greater can be our RPWH figure without our lives being out of balance. If only a small or moderate proportion of these yearnings and needs are met by paid work, however, then having a RPWH in the fifties, sixties or more will often mean that a person's life is out of balance, and that by reducing one's RPWH, there may be an opportunity to increase one's quality of life through allocating more time to neglected yearnings and needs.

We do a further calculation - one's Real Paid Hourly Rate (RPHR). This is defined by one's average weekly net income divided by one's average weekly RPWH. Note here that net income means more than just income after tax. From this figure you need to further subtract other work-associated costs, such as child care fees to allow you to work, commuting costs to and from work, health-related costs caused by the stressors of work, etc. After doing this exercise, participants learn what they are really earning for their hour's work.

You can also work out your RPHR for the last half-day or day's work that you do per week, taking into account that the income earned from these hours are often taxed at a higher marginal tax rate. This allows you to know the real net amount, once all costs are taken into account, of working that fifth day or tenth half-day each week - you may be surprised at how low this is!

This provides a figure to help people make decisions regarding working and consuming. For example, if one's RPHR is $10, then one knows that purchasing a $30 product or service will require three hours of paid work - time that could be used for other things if the purchase wasn't made. For the many people who find that their paid work does not meet many of their yearnings / passions, looking at it this way makes it easier to decide "I'll choose the time to spend on the things that are important to me, rather than make the purchase".

For people who decide that their RPWH is too high, we then focus on ways to reduce this. We cover Amy Saltzman's five patterns of downshifting in her book "Downshifting: Reinventing Success on a Slower Track" - plateauing, backtracking, career shifting, urban escapee, self-employer - and explore other options such as jobsharing, reduced working hours, etc. We show that while reducing one's contracted working hours is one means to reduce one's RPWH, there are also other ways (e.g. backtracking to a less stressful, but still full-time position where there is less unpaid overtime, less out-of-work time disrupted by stress and tiredness, etc).

We remind ourselves how all this can be possible through one of the central issues of simplicity - reducing our spending so that we can afford the associated cut in income.

We discuss the importance and value of unpaid work and social capital - that much of the world's most important work does not occur in the paid workforce. I draw upon Marilyn Waring's analysis here to demonstrate how women's work, in particular, has been devalued because much of it has not been measured in national systems of economic / financial accounts - despite this work being a cornerstone of society.

From here we show that by reducing our RPWH, we are not becoming lazy. Rather, through this we are achieving a better balance between paid and unpaid work. We show how the unpaid work of nurturing family and community relationships, caring for the Earth, belonging to community groups, etc often contributes at least as much to the common good as one's paid work.

This then provides a natural linkage to considerations of community. The pieces of a decentralised, community-based economy are discussed to build a more humane and ecologically sustainable alternative to the global economy - community banking, LETS and local currencies, local organic food growing, Community-Supported Agriculture, local enterprise support schemes, Community-Land Trusts, housing cooperatives and ecovillages, renewable energy systems, etc. The development of these structures both flow from and further enhance people's efforts towards voluntary simplicity lifestyles, and provide a real alternative to the status quo.

If some or many participants are parents or work with children, we discuss ways to encourage children to be mindful of what they consume. This often creates considerable discussion amongst participants, such as what to do regarding excessive television watching and the consumerist pressures that children are faced with.

I also use experiential exercises to help participants slow down to a more natural rhythm of time (Consumer Culture goes far too fast), to become centred in our bodily knowing, and to develop a here-and-now mindfulness of our immediate surroundings so that we can sense the richness and joy of what's around and flowing through us - rather than a linear, head-driven focus on what is next on our schedule. Mindfulness is a very important thread in voluntary simplicity - it focuses us on our oneness with the Earth, and how this is reflected in our inner yearnings, passions and love.

As you can see, voluntary simplicity involves a range of diverse and interdependent issues. There is no need to focus on every dimension at once, perhaps start off with one that you feel would be the easiest to progress with first, and then gradually introduce the others.

Resources that I'd recommend to help you are:

Internet Resources

Voluntary Simplicity for a Sustainable Society www.iinet.net.au/~ecoheal
Overcoming Consumerism www.verdant.net
Adbusters www.adbusters.org (for International Buy Nothing Day, TV Turn-Off Week and other events and information to counter Consumer Culture)
We Can Make the World a Better Place www.futurewa.org/resources
Simple Living Network www.simpleliving.net

Voluntary Simplicity: Reducing Ecological Footprint and By-Passing the Global Economy

by Rodney Vlais

Internet Resources

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