The simple life. “Pah, what’s that?” I hear you say and that’s exactly what I used to think too when I was living a life I thought I wanted. I wanted to earn enough money to buy anything that caught my eye, I wanted to own a victorian cottage, I wanted foreign holidays every single year and I did achieve all those things with a lot of hard work and stress but something was missing. Contentment. Sure, don’t get me wrong, I found contentment in simply sitting in the garden on a hot sunny day, listening to the birds sing, but those days were spent alone with thoughts and worry about money. I was constantly living from payday to payday and wishing time away to get there quicker in order to keep a roof over my head. To me, this was NOT living.
When I left Ikea, I knew I wanted a slower lifestyle. Since going plastic-free I knew I wanted a simpler lifestyle too but it’s been over the last couple of months since moving to Somerset and thinking about my next chapter in life, that my want for a simple life has grown ever-stronger. A simple life that will give me the freedom to enjoy life.
So what is simple living? Isn’t it the same as slow-living? It’s easy to think that but whilst there are many cross overs and of course, they have different meanings to each individual, there is one key difference.
Slow living = Valuing time
Simple living = Valuing living with less
Living with less doesn’t mean finding how little we can live with but simply acknowledging what we can’t live without.
This journey of simple living, for me, started with my wardrobe. So many clothes and never having anything to wear. £££ of clothes hanging in front of me not being used. What a waste of time and money. I hate waste! So, with guidance from my favourite slow, simple living blogger, Jessica Rose Williams, I worked on my own capsule wardrobe. Having a limited selection of clothes, within my own colour palette enabled me to own less but gain value in garments that could be mixed and matched to come up with new wearable outfits every day. The journey continued when I sold my house a couple of months ago. I saw the opportunity to have a good clear out as I was boxing up. After all, what was the point in packing things that no longer brought me joy to only be left in a box once they got to the other end?
I now feel content with my simplified wardrobe and belongings but it’s now time for me to simplify my lifestyle and, along with my Somerset Beau, that simple life is within our grasp in the form of a narrowboat. A small simple living space that we will own outright. A small simple living space that will be filled with only things that bring us joy. A small simple living space that creates mindful consumption of all things. Food, clothes, energy, and time. A narrowboat may not be for everyone but, to us, a narrowboat could give us everything we want. Freedom and contentment living with less.
If you’d like to know more about our future narrowboat lives, head over to my latest IGTV Q&A session here.