The Healing Power of Simplicity

BY SOFO ARCHON

The economist E. F. Schumacher said that any fool can make things complicated, but it requires a genius to make things simple.

Is humanity, then, totally foolish?

Consider how complicated we’ve made our lives. Most of us spend half our waking hours working hard at things we don’t enjoy, just to earn enough money. And when we finally have some free time, we often spend both our money and our time shopping—buying products we don’t really need, many of which later demand more time and money to maintain.

Our homes are cluttered with stuff: furniture, clothes, gadgets, and so on. Some of it we use regularly, but most serves no purpose. It simply occupies space. Our kitchens, for instance, are often filled with food products waiting to be consumed. Yet we rarely use them all up, so many of them eventually expire, and then we throw them into the rubbish bin, only to soon fill our cupboards with new ones.

All this stuff clutters not just our physical space, but also our mental space, draining our energy and focus. Yet advertising has convinced us otherwise: that it brings us joy and fulfillment. So we keep acquiring products, yet we are never satisfied. On the contrary, we are sad, confused, and exhausted.

Even the richest of the rich, with their mansions and private jets, are often sad and miserable. That’s because happiness doesn’t lie in stuff—it lies in the contentment of the heart. True happiness comes from the feeling: “I am enough” and “I have enough.” And what nurtures that feeling? Not material objects, but simple experiences—reconnecting with ourselves, cultivating loving relationships, spending time in nature, or engaging in creative work. These are the “things” that truly enrich life. Almost everything else only drains the joy from it.

Other than the harm we’re causing to ourselves by needlessly accumulating stuff, we’re also inflicting harm on our fellow humans. The world is made up of finite resources, shared by 8 billion people at this stage of our evolution. This means that when we take more for ourselves, others inevitably have less. In other words, the excessive wealth of one person means the impoverishment of a lot of others.

Currently, economic inequality worldwide is so extreme and pervasive that, according to a recent report, the world’s richest 1% have almost twice the wealth of the rest of humanity combined. Can you fathom how outrageous that is?

As the human population grows and natural resources are depleted at an accelerating rate, economic inequality is likely to worsen. To prevent this, we must embrace simplicity, for only a simpler way of life can restore social justice. As the philosopher Satish Kumar said: “We need to live simply so that others may simply live.”

Most importantly, our excessive consumption is killing life on Earth. For example, the tremendous waste of toxic materials caused by mindless consumption has poisoned the soil, air, and oceans. Speaking of the oceans, it is estimated that by 2050 they will contain more plastic than fish. So I ask: is this the world we want to live in? A world filled with ugliness, suffering, and death?

Somewhere I read that if everyone consumed at the rate Americans and Europeans do, we would need three planets to sustain ourselves. But guess what—we have only one. Unless we learn to live in harmony with nature, our global civilization could soon perish.

Gandhi said that the Earth has enough for everyone’s needs, but not enough for everyone’s greed. We could live happily together and have enough to satisfy our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. But when are greedy, we can never have enough—even if we possess everything. In our pursuit of “more,” we ruin our personal health, public well-being, and the health of the wonderful planet that sustains us and all life.

Simplicity is the remedy for our personal, social, and ecological maladies. The question is: when will we leave our foolishness behind and regain the lost wisdom of knowing that enough is enough?