The Start of an All New Year.

So here we are in 2013. What will the year bring I wonder?

When I think about what I want to achieve this year, all I can really think of is to keep SMPLFYing in all aspects of my life:

Financially
- Live within my means
- Focus on paying off my debts
- Save money

Spiritually
- Meditate

Mentally
- Keep learning about and practicing simple living

Emotionally
- Stay calm and focused
- Learn to let go of negative thoughts and reactions
       
Physically
- Eat a plant-based diet
- Eat more whole food
- Engage in more physical activity
             
Relationships
- Make more time for friends
- Be a better friend

Family
- Make and spend more time with family

The biggest thing I would like to achieve this year is to Have More Time. In other words, I would like to spend less time in paid employment and more time in creating a simple life. This is not a time management issue but a life management issue.

To spend time growing my own food so I do not have to rely on my job to pay for it makes alot of sense. The fact that I need my job to pay for the petrol to get me there does not make sense nor does all of  the wear and tear on my car caused by all of that commuting (up to 1.5 hours per day). The time and energy spent on my job means that by the end of the day and the week I am exhausted. In saying all that, I am very very grateful to be in paid employment because in these economical times many are not. I do enjoy it...just not all of the time I spend at it. At this stage, I don't want to give up my job altogether. Ofcourse, less time in paid employment means less money BUT on the other hand, it also means more time to spend on practicing and learning new skills to help me be more self-sufficient e.g. growing and making my own food, sewing, making my own cleaning and beauty products, creating products and or services to sell, carpentry and the list goes on. I want to rely more on my self and my own set of skills rather than relying on my job.

In my next post I will talk about what I already do to SMPLFY my life, what else I plan to do and how I plan to go about it.

So what do you want to achieve this year? Do you even want to achieve anything? Because it's okay if you don't. Sometimes goals can stress us out unnecessarily. Maybe you are absolutely fine with your life and just want to live each day and every moment as it comes. Whatever you choose is the right choice for you.

I would love to know what you would like your 2013 to be like, how you already SMPLFY your life and/or how you plan to SMPLFY it more . Please feel free to leave your thoughts and comments.

Happy New Year!

xxrae

Reasons to SMPLFY #1

Living simply, to me, is all about getting back to basics and ridding yourself of unnecessary external factors. It is about acquiring more time for yourself to do the things you want to do instead of spending your time immersed in the drudgery of going to a job five or six days a week.

I think we are made to believe by society, by our parents, by our friends, by marketing, that we must work in order to live the dream life; that of a consumer. We need the flash new flatscreen TV. We need the expensive car. We need to travel to the most expensively glorious holiday spots. We need that brand of make-up/aftershave/hair product. If we don't have any of this then we are poor, boring, not achieving in life.

But I see it differently. I see those people who believe the hype as being poor (most of them are in debt), boring (they choose to follow the crowd and not think for themselves) and non-achievers (alot of them never get to achieve their life purpose because they are on the treadmill of what they believe their lives should be like). They have allowed themselves to be conditioned into thinking that this way is "normal" and that people who think and live differently to them are weird. I actually find that kind of scary.

Once we change our mindset and SMPLFY our lives, then we don't need to invest our precious time and energy in fulltime employment.  We can get by with alternatives, and the world is FULL of alternatives . We just need to research and spend time figuring out what these alternatives are and which ones work for us. We can then invest our precious time and energy into ourselves, our family, our friends, our community, our environment, our attitudes and so on. There is so much potential for us!

I love this video! EcoVeganGal (http://ecovegangal.com) is one of my favourite websites to follow. In this video she (Whitney Lauritson) talks about changing your mindset and living simply.

The Start of My Journey.

Welcome to my first post. I truly hope you enjoy reading about my journey to SMPLFY my life.

I finished work today for the Christmas break. I have three weeks off and have decided this year not to go away except for an overnight trip away for New Years Eve. Instead I am going to SMPLFY. I am going to live simply for three weeks and truly experience the life I am craving without any distractions i.e. my job. 

I live in a rural area on the west coast of Auckland in New Zealand called Bethells. It is about 45 minutes from the central city. We are on tank water, we have no cellphone coverage and most of the area is comprised of 10 acre properties, except near the beach where there are homes on much smaller sections.

Bethells is my bliss. I can escape the frenetic pace of the city and truly relax here. There is luscious bush filled with native birds and their melodic song, a rugged and windswept beach with black iron sand that burns your feet in summer, wetlands that cause a multitude of mosquitoes to annoy us in the warm weather, towering black sand dunes that hide the calm waters of Lake Wainamu, bush walks, farmland, and a community that appreciates and loves the area wholeheartedly.

My aim is to stay in Bethells for the first week of my holiday without venturing out into the wider world. I will spend time getting jobs done around home. I will cook from scratch. I will not spend any money. I will make use of what I already have. I will spend my summer holiday at home this year and I am so happy about that!

Lake Wainamu

The sand dunes

I work full-time and as much as I enjoy my job, I hate not having time to tend to my life. I want to spend more time at home creating, doing and achieving the things that interest me. I don't want to spend up to two hours a day in peak traffic getting to and from my job. I don't want to be worrying about whether or not I'll have enough money to see me through to next payday. I don't want to be in debt. I want to live within my means, save money and feel satisfied at the end of the day that I have spent my time enjoyably and wisely. I want to be more self-sufficient, more sustainable, be kinder to the environment than I already am and be more content in myself.

Joe the Scarecrow keeping an eye on the vege garden

I feel very passionate about living a simple life and I hope that we can share ideas and information to help us all along the journey. Please leave any comments that you wish to share and please do join me again for my next post.