Why Live More Simply? Because It Gives You Options
Ones you may not have if your life remains complicated
This week’s essay comes to you from a Berlin coffee shop:
It was supposed to come from Porto. But for the first time in 2.5 years of travel, I’ve been duped by the most inconvenient of travel issues.
Our flight was canceled.
Whilst we were supposed to be in Porto today in order to start our residency process (super excited about that), we’re still 2600km to the east sipping flat whites with the most hipster of hipsters on the planet.
Something that has swirled around my mind again and again since we heard we’d be staying a few days longer in the coolest of European capitals (seriously, I have no complaints on that side) is how grateful I am for the options my life affords me.
Frankly, this inconvenience isn’t especially inconvenient.
It’s not because we have plenty of money. And thankfully our extra hotels, transfers, meals, and flights have been paid for by Ryanair which is a relief because Berlin is freaking expensive.
More it’s because a simple life gives you options. Ones you don’t have with a more complicated life.
And whilst I am in an especially freedom-filled position - most people don’t travel full time with all their possessions in a suitcase - whatever your simple life looks like, I guarantee you’ve given yourself far more options than a life filled with stuff, excess, and complication.
When it comes to having options, the world does the dirty on us.
It tells us we can have it all - so long as all you want is stuff. Houses? Sure. Cars? No problem. Clothes, tech, and status symbols? You got it.
When it comes to creating options for your life, it tells you that’s not possible.
Want the option to be in a band? Nope. To travel full-time? Nuh-uh. To live a life even vaguely unconventionally? Are you freaking kidding me??
It’s like we’re in a constant battle between stuff-options and life-options. And unless you’re incredibly rich and have figured out how to live to be 150, you can’t have them both because there simply isn’t enough money or time.
The world wants us to choose stuff and it’s all too easy to succumb to that. So we box ourselves in. We tell ourselves we can’t have life options because there is no time or money left once we’ve gone after all the stuff.
Except, life options are available to many more of us than we think, especially if you are making decent (or better) money. Especially if you live in a country with, at the very least, the potential for opportunity.
Much of the problem is prioritization.
Take traveling full-time. Many people tell me they’d love to do what I do, but it’s not an option available to them. Whilst this is sometimes true - say for someone who has very complex medical needs - quite often, it boils down to the fact that I prioritized travel over everything stuff-based. I gave up a mortgage, a business, and a whole life in the UK for travel.
I gave up everything stuff-based so I could choose something life-based.
This is why living simply gives you options. By living with less, you’re making an intentional decision to prioritize life over stuff. Once there is less in your life - fewer things or appointments and less busy work - there’s more room for life.
Like fulfilling careers. Hobbies. Travel. Family and friends. Sleep, FFS.
It always floors me how many people assume that a simple life is a deprived one. That’s only true if you always choose the stuff option.
Sure, I have fewer clothes than the average 38-year-old woman. I have less house. Fewer cars (i.e. none). Fewer things.
In exchange, however, I get to do things like spend two extra days in Berlin with no dramas. We’re here visiting old friends and their new baby, so I’ve been given an extra 48 hours with them.
There ain’t nothing deprived about that.
This morning, I ran to the East Side Gallery. For those of you not up on your Berlin history, the gallery is a stretch of the Berlin Wall that was graffitied on the East side after the fall of Communism back in 1989. It’s now the longest open-air art gallery in the world.
I walked past the wall, then poked my head around to the other side. As I wove in between what was once East and West Berlin, I couldn’t help but think about how impossible it would have been to do this 35 years ago.
Anyone trying to illegally cross the wall would have been shot on sight. Today, I get to run through it all without a second thought.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to Tempelhof airstrip to have a beer with my friends. This was once the lifeblood of West Berlin and occasionally their only source of food and supplies. Now it’s a park.
Last night, I walked past Checkpoint Charlie on my way back from a wine bar. Again, I seamlessly passed from East to West Berlin. 35 years ago, people risked their lives - and often lost them - trying to pass that checkpoint. Today, it’s a tourist site.
Spending as much time as I do in ex-Soviet, ex-dictatorial, and ex-war-ridden countries, you can’t help but be made aware of your privilege. Whenever I see someone over the age of 50 in places like Berlin, Romania, Albania, or old Yugoslavia, I think about what life would have been like for them back then.
I have options that people back in the 1960s - 1980s most certainly did not. They didn’t have the opportunity to choose between stuff and life, they were just trying to get by. Whereas in 2023, most of us - in the Western world at least - do have opportunities. Even if sometimes they’re hard to figure out.
Visiting places like these are a constant reminder of that. It checks your privilege and keeps you on the right path.
The one filled with life, not stuff.
That park looks very interesting. And you are so right about stuff options vs life options. But getting people to see that is very very hard....
So well said Charlie...and often it just seems to come down to asking yourself why to stuff and why not to life. Just trying to keep it simple :) Be well!