Janet Luhrs - The Simple Living Guide

Copyright 1997 by Janet Luhrs.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States oby Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York

www.crownpublishing.com

BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo B\D\W\Y are trademarks of Random House LLC.

Originally published in paperback in slightly different form in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, New York, in 1997.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Luhrs, Janet.

The simple living guide: a sourcebook for less stressful, more joyful living/Janet Luhrs.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Simplicity. 2. Conduct of life. I. Title.
BJ1496.L84 1997 97-13486 CIP
646.7dc21

ISBN 0-553-06796-6

eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-80306-1

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Holly A. Block

First eBook Edition

You can subscribe to The Simple Living Journal by sending a check or money order to: Simple Living, 4509 Interlake Avenue North PMB 149, Seattle, WA, 98103. A one-year subscription in the United States is $16.00, $21.00 (U.S. funds) in Canada, and $24.00 (U.S. funds) in all other countries.
Simple Living is a quarterly publication that is filled with stories about people who have slowed down and created rich lives, and it includes tips and articles to help readers on the journey. Simple Living also includes a community bulletin board where readers throughout the world can connect with each other via study circle and pen pal listings, as well as a website: www.simpleliving.com.

v3.1

This book is dedicated to my favorite kids in the whole world
Jessica and Patrickand to my family: Mom, Dad, Don, and Karen.

Thank you very much to friends, colleagues, volunteers, and others who helped with this book.

First, thanks to my kids, who inspire me always to remember the important things in life and to my parents for teaching me the value of simplicity.

Thanks to my friends for putting up with me when I had to keep saying, Well get together soon, I promise!

Thanks to the wonderful volunteers at Simple Living for keeping the newsletter running while I was buried in manuscripts (and even when Im not buried in manuscripts): Patty Lowry, Nancy Reifler, Valerie Neck, and Lisa Ely, and to the paid people who also kept things running: Heidi Wolf, Teryl Heller, Wendy Cleary, and Marin Bjork. Even though Ruth Pickering isnt currently volunteering at Simple Living , thank you very much for all of the endless hours in the past and for continued friendship. And thanks to Magrit Baurecht for always coming up with good designs and page layouts for Simple Living .

Thanks to people who helped with some of the chapters.

Moneythanks to Barbara Ahern and her dad, Bob Ahern, for reading and rereading the chapter over and over and for creating all the graphs and charts. Thanks to Barbara for explaining investments and good sense to me. Thanks to Ron Bryan for helping me figure out how to calculate compound interest, and thanks to Mona Ahern for proofreading all those facts and figures. By the way, Barbara, thanks for making sure I kept exercising.

Resourcesthanks to my buddy Taso Lagos for reading and annotating all of those books and for our many walks around the lake where we solve the problems of humanity and analyze the meaning of life. Sometimes we even solve our own problems.

Virtuesthanks to my inspirational mentor, Linda Kavelin Popov, for sharing the virtues with me and for encouraging me and so many others to unearth our virtues within.

Health and Exercisethanks to Ruth Streeter for researching simple exercise and for finding that terrific quote from Business Week about how Americans like to drive to the store and then use treadmills at home. I couldnt have said it better.

Inner Simplicitythanks to Rodney Smith, who inspires lots of people with his gentle teachings of insight meditation, for helping to make sure I had the inner simplicity chapter right.

Gardeningthanks to Kathryn True for her excellent research. If it werent for Kathryn, Id have told everyone to pave their yards over with cement and then paint it all green.

Workthanks to my friend Larry Gaffin whose work as a career counselor has helped people pursue their dreams, and who helped me organize the chapter.

Editingthanks to the staff at Broadway Books, especially Betsy Thorpe and Janet Goldstein. Your ideas, comments, and support helped make the Guide even better.

Best agent award goes to Theresa Park, who inspired the whole thing and introduced me to Broadway Books!

The whole bookthanks to my simplicity colleagues and mentors for helping me to see that there is another, wonderful path to take: Duane Elgin, Cecile Andrews, Vicki Robin, and the crew at New Road Map Foundation, and thanks to the memory of Joe Dominguez. I have learned so much.

W hen I first got involved with voluntary simplicity, I heard this quote from Thoreau over and over. It was supposed to symbolize the movement, somehow. I listened and thought it sounded right, but I didnt really and truly get it. First I thought it meant that anyone who wanted to honestly simplify had to go live in the woods. After all, how could anyone live simply in the midst of the hustle and bustle of a city? I was so enamored of simplicity and so excited to get right to it that I signed up for a class on how to build log houses. My little dream was that my family would go off and live in a log cabin in the woods, simply ever after. Everything would take care of itself from there on.

Six years later Im still living in the same house in the same city. I still look pretty much the same. But inside Ive changed. And lots of little details have changed. Ive edited and published a journal titled Simple Living since 1992. I have interviewed countless people who have simplified their lives in every way imaginable. I talked to dozens and dozens more for this book. I read everything I could get my hands on about the subject. And I spent a lot of time thinking about what it all meant. Now, finally, I really, deeply understand the quote. The key word is not woods , it is deliberately . What the heck does that really mean? This one word, in my opinion, is the hallmark of a simple life.

People and reporters often ask me what I think simple living is all about. They want to know how low an income they can live on. They want to know if they should keep their condo in the city. Does simple living mean giving up their car? Does it mean never traveling? Does it mean living in poverty? Do you have to go meditate on top of a mountain in Tibet to be really simple? Do you have to live in an austere house? Must you live an austere existence? Can you never go to restaurants or movies?