Copyright 1999 by Linda Breen Pierce. All rights reserved.
Most of us don't simply wake up one morning and decide to change the way we live. As a friend of mine reflected, "Coming to simplicity sometimes takes 20 years." In my own life, I know this to be true. Being the second of eight children born to Catholic parents who were neither rich nor poor, I am probably not that much different than most Americans born in the last five decades. My beginnings were modest and my quest for happiness covered a wide range. In the years between entering the convent at the age of sixteen, through becoming an attorney at age thirty, my life took many turns. I earned a degree in African Studies and went on extended trips to Africa, the Galapagos Islands, and the South Pacific. Except for a five-year period in my early twenties when I was married, I lived on very little, alternating periods of work and college. That all changed when I married at age twenty-two. My husband's parents showered us with generous gifts, buying us beautiful clothes and treating us to lavish vacations in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Indonesia. As wonderful as it was to enjoy such material abundance, I felt a puzzling emptiness. After five years, my marriage ended--a simple case of two people who were too young to form a mature relationship. After my divorce, I returned to my frugal ways while attending law school. A few years later, I obtained my law degree--my ticket to earn the big bucks--and came into my material own. I could afford a car, some nice clothes, and frequent ski trips. While I still needed to manage my money carefully, I didn't need to count every cent. Within a few years I had doubled my income. Now, I had enough money to indulge all my material urgings. I bought silk suits for $500 each, not because I really desired such nice clothes, but for the sake of convenience. I met a designer and manufacturer of high-quality women's clothing who turned my shopping experience into a real pleasure. Loretta invited me to lunch in her office where we would dine on delicious seafood salads and white wine while I tried on clothes for several hours. Typically, we would meet for lunch two or three times each year, and I would always come home with $2,000 to $3,000 worth of clothes. I married Jim, my second husband, in my early thirties. Jim was earning good money in the corporate world. We spent freely and thoughtlessly on expensive vacations, frequent restaurant meals, and regular household help. For a while, we hired a woman to come in every afternoon for four hours to clean our house, run our errands, launder our clothes, and prepare an elaborate dinner for us. We referred to Martha as "our wife." We would arrive home from work in the early evening, sit down with cocktails for our daily debriefing session, and eventually meander into the dining room where Martha would serve us dinner and then quietly slip out the door. The Work Thing The amount of money I earned as an attorney was not important to me for what it could buy, but it was vital to my self-image. My self-esteem seemed to rise in direct proportion to my salary increases. I could feel myself puffing up as I shared with close friends and family the successive annual salary increases I received in my corporate attorney position. When I surpassed the $100,000 mark and gained a Vice President title, a company car, stock options, and pension benefits, I figured I was a success. I was somebody. I truly loved much of my work as an attorney. I thrived on the intellectual challenge and satisfaction. I am blessed with a logical, linear mind--but of course would prefer to have a poet's talent--and I took to legal analysis like a fish to water. I discovered I had abilities to organize and lead groups of people in major projects, such as mergers and acquisitions. It was an unbelievable ego trip to perform well and to do so easily and naturally. I basked in the positive strokes I received from my superiors and colleagues. Although my experience as an attorney did wonders for my pocketbook and my ego, it did little for my soul. With few exceptions, attorneys are, by definition, working with the breakdown of a relationship (litigation), or with the anticipation of a breakdown of a relationship. I am not a person who thrives on conflict. I also found a striking lack of courtesy, respect, and cooperation in the legal profession. Working as an attorney was draining the spirit out of me, bit by bit, year by year. Similarly, I found that working in a corporate environment was enormously draining. While I could and did excel at playing corporate games, I did so at a great personal cost. I did not sleep well and was often sick during those years. I became a tense, uptight person who was only half-jokingly referred to by one of my colleagues as "Colonel Breen." I had lost a part of my humanity. I pushed myself to my limits in my work as an attorney. Sometimes I think I pushed myself beyond my limits. I would pour out my feelings regularly in my journal. Eventually, there came a time when I knew I had to leave. On the day I received a very positive annual review and hefty salary increase, I came home and wrote this poem: Not for Sale That was the surprise, My heart feels stolen, My soul asks, "Why? My heart cries out, It was a gift, So, I take my heart, When I reached the highest point of success, my soul began to rebel and forced me to look at the values in my life. Nature and Beauty I had moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles in the early 1980's initially for romance, but stayed there for ten years primarily because of work opportunities. Jim and I lived in the Hollywood hills. While our neighborhood of older, Spanish homes and lush landscaping was beautiful, only two blocks away lay unattractive commercial streets, devoid of any appealing architectural style or other redeeming qualities--a perfect setting for drugs and violence accompanied by the obnoxious sound of patrolling police helicopters in the night. Living in Los Angeles for many people, and certainly for us, involved working in, playing in, and driving through densely populated areas with little greenery. This environment ate away at me inside. As a teenager, I had enjoyed many summer camping experiences in the High Sierras of Northern California where I fell in love with the mountains, the trees, the dirt and rocks on the hiking paths, the rivers, and the fresh air. Clearly, I am not a "big city" person. Rather, I thrive in small towns surrounded by abundant natural beauty. Inside of me is the sensitive soul of an artist--I soaked up the stresses of Los Angeles like a dry sponge. The population density, the ubiquitous cement buildings and hard surfaces, and the speed of the Los Angeles freeways were all very disruptive to my sense of inner peace. It is true that there are beautiful, less populated areas in the Los Angeles area, but I didn't live or work in those places. Jumping off the High Dive I was suffocating in Los Angeles (literally and figuratively) while becoming someone. My incessant journal writing became an effective tool for me to connect with my inner self. Gradually, I saw that the price I paid for becoming someone was steep indeed. I started to question the value of what I was getting compared to what I was paying. I realized that once I became someone, the question would arise, "What next?" Indeed, what was next? I had achieved what I had set out to do professionally. What I learned in my journey to my inner self was that becoming someone was simply not enough. It did not have lasting value. So, having been raised to have few fears, I jumped off the high dive. I quit my job as a corporate attorney in December of 1989, much to the astonishment of friends and family. Jim was fully supportive of this move, even though our only other income--from his computer consulting business--was irregular. False Starts and Other Detours When I left the legal profession, I joined Jim's computer consulting firm, which specialized in the legal market. Living in Los Angeles, however, still grated on me, and Jim started to tire of the stress and pressure involved in the computer consulting business. Having survived the loss of income from my attorney job, we were emboldened to go farther toward creating a more satisfying life for ourselves. We roamed up and down the California coast looking for a small town that we would feel at home in. In 1991, we moved to the Monterey Peninsula. We continued to do computer consulting for the first year after our move and then decided to let that go, also. Bit by bit, we changed all the essentials of our lives--our home, the city in which we lived, and the work that each of us did. Jim came up with the idea of our selling real estate together. My experience as a real estate attorney and Jim's computer expertise would be assets in the business. So we tried it--first with a small, local firm and then we opened our own firm, with just the two of us. Real estate sales turned out to be a false start for me. In addition to dealing with a depressed real estate market, making it difficult to make a decent living, I discovered that the intense people involvement and the conflicts inherent in buying and selling homes drained me emotionally. There are few things more stressful for people than buying or selling a home, and I absorbed the stress my clients were experiencing. In addition to discovering that real estate was not a good fit for me, we were losing money. The darkest night of our experience came the year we spent $10,000 more than we brought in, paying ourselves nothing in salaries. Our lack of financial success was a shock to us. Jim and I had always been successful professionals. We somehow believed that we could do anything we wanted to do. That belief in our invincibility led us to buy a single family home and then invest a bundle of money, time, and energy into a major remodel, all based on the assumption that we could certainly make the kind of money we made in Los Angeles. We believed that income was just around the corner. We both scratch our heads now at how presumptuous we were. We learned the difficult lessons that we are not in total control of our lives and we are not infallible. Rebuilding our Lives Fast forward to the fall of 1995. Here we were living in our home worth nearly $500,000, with almost all of our savings invested in that home, and with grossly inadequate income to pay the mortgage and other living expenses. We would sit together in our lovely solarium, looking at each other, wondering what to do. Neither one of us wanted to go back to traditional, salaried positions in order to keep our home. Our freedom was more precious to us. About this time, I read an article in Worth magazine on the voluntary simplicity trend. I started to read everything I could get my hands on about simple living. The lights went on, the bells chimed, and everything became clear. This life we were living didn't make any sense! We put our home on the market and sold it in about six months. At the same time, some good friends moved to London and did not want to bring their two large Bouvier dogs with them because of England's six-month quarantine rule. They were looking for someone to housesit their Carmel home (with free rent) and take care of their dogs for a few years. The timing of this opportunity was incredible. We volunteered, even though we had no experience with dogs, let alone large dogs, including a three-month-old, not-quite-trained puppy named Murphy. After a difficult first few months of adjusting to being parents of dogs, we became quite attached to our new charges and settled down to a very enjoyable lifestyle in the village of Carmel, walking to town and the beach daily. With no housing expenses except for utilities, we were able to reverse the rapid deterioration of our savings. I dropped out of real estate sales and decided to write a book about simple living. Jim joined a local Carmel real estate firm. The real estate market improved somewhat and he started to make some money. I was able to earn some income writing for a legal publisher on a contract basis. We were no longer in the red. During 1996, I continued my research on the simplicity movement. I set up a web site and started collecting surveys of people who had experimented with simplifying their lives. I had discovered my passion, my right livelihood. I loved my work and still do even as I write these words at the close of 1998. I also enjoy the legal writing that I continue to do on a part-time, freelance contract basis. Jim enjoys the real estate business and is now earning a good income. One more major change occurred in 1997. The owners of the home we were housesitting decided to sell their home. We thought long and hard about whether to rent or buy our next residence. We loved the natural and architectural beauty of Carmel, not to mention the fabulous lifestyle of walking everywhere, including one of the most spectacular coastal walks in the world. We finally decided to buy instead of rent. Our decision was based primarily on the fact that we had moved so many times in the last 15 years we didn't want to face another move if the landlord wanted the property back or decided to sell. We bought a two-bedroom, two-bath condominium (1,100 square feet) within walking distance of the village and the ocean. It does not have the charm or the privacy of the small quaint cottages in our town, but it's only half the price. We traded in charm and long lists of maintenance chores for our freedom. Our goal is to pay off our mortgage as soon as possible. Once we do that, we will be close to financial independence. Who knows how long it will take us? Meanwhile, we enjoy our work and our lives very much. We are not waiting until some point in the future to start living the lives we dream of. We are doing it now. A Spiritual Transformation Following the path of simplicity has led to more personal satisfaction in my world of work and in my daily life generally. My new, slower-paced lifestyle gives me time to reflect on just about anything and everything. My frequent walks and runs along the spectacular coast of the Monterey Peninsula and my hikes in the Big Sur mountains bring me closer to my spiritual self. I feel a sense of oneness with nature and with all life on the planet. Journal writing, meditation, walking to town to do errands, and the occasional leisurely lunch all contribute to a different way of living for me--a slower, more relaxed way of being. This new way of life has led to a spiritual transformation within me. When I started reading everything I could find on simple living in the fall of 1995, I discovered that many advocates of simplicity had a strong interest in preserving the earth's resources. I saw in these writings an almost religious respect for nature, plants, and animals. At first, I didn't really see the connection between simple living and caring for the earth. After all, a person might have plenty of good reasons to simplify her life without considering the earth. Even though I had always been passionate about nature, I had never been an environmentalist. To the contrary, I often reacted negatively to what I perceived as extreme stances taken by environmental activists. Then, over the course of about a year, my feelings about environmental issues changed radically. I started to see a connection between simple living and caring about the earth. For me, this was a spiritual experience, not an intellectual exercise. It was not the reading of simplicity tomes that changed me. It was the time spent by myself in nature and the slower pace of my life that did it. It was also my journal writing and thinking quietly by myself. The changes I've experienced seem to be spiritually based. They stem from my core belief that we are all connected in some way that our rational, human minds cannot comprehend. I believe that there is some form of a higher level of experience that we share, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. As I see it, when we connect with our inner selves, we touch the part of ourselves that is connected to all other forms of life. When that happens, we naturally start caring about those other life forms, including the earth, plants, animals, other humans, and people who will be born after we are gone. Living simply has also sharpened my feelings about social injustices. I view the global human population as one world. I don't understand why Americans should have so much more wealth than four-fifths of the remaining world population. I am disheartened to think that our priorities as a global society allow millions of people to go without sufficient food, shelter, and health care. I wonder why so many of us take more than what we truly need to live fulfilling, satisfying lives. Why don't more of us share our abundance with others less fortunate? When I look at my own life, I see that I have a long way to go before I can truly walk my talk. Even though I have reduced my dependence on material possessions and cut back on my utilization of the earth's resources, I still consume more resources than four-fifths of the world's population. Perhaps, if I were a perfect human being, I would not be living a life of comfort in America, but instead would be residing in a third world country trying to help others less fortunate than I. However, I don't beat myself up about not walking my talk. I see my personal growth on these matters as a process. Before a child runs, she learns to walk. Before she walks, she must crawl. I am at the crawling stage. I don't think any of us make a valuable contribution by forcing ourselves to "do the right thing." It must come from within and it must be authentic to make a difference. What Simple Living Means to Me When I think about simplifying my life, I see it as a process, rather than a thing or a destination. There is no point in time when I will say to myself, "Ah, I have arrived. Isn't this grand?" It is not something that I have accomplished. It is not even anything I can really define. For me, simplicity is a process, a way of looking at the world and myself. There is nothing static or fixed about living simply. In fact, for me a better term to describe this approach to living would be soulful living. By soulful living, I mean the process in which a person invests the time and energy to develop her inner self, to connect with whatever higher being or spiritual presence she believes in. In my view, this is all that is required. Once a person does that, everything else falls into place. All of the answers to life's difficult challenges become evident, not necessarily easy, nor without anxieties and fear, but clarity and courage will usually prevail. My experience illustrates that simplifying often takes years, not weeks or months, and usually consists of small, serial steps rather than a wholesale makeover. I find it to be an exciting and tremendously rewarding adventure. |