Simplifying: The New Thing in The 21st Century

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Ever since the events of 9-11 that practically kicked off the start of the 21st century there has been a new thing happening in the lives of people and businesses: it is called minimizing or “doing more with less”.  Due to the fact that people have been going through more of a consciousness revolution they have been spending less. The result is that businesses have had to downsize because they have a harder time than ever getting people to purchase their goods and services.  Of course given that much of the stuff produced in society either goes to waste or would not benefit society if they suddenly became more self-sufficient the practice of minimizing could be a good thing. It would make life simpler and less stressful. This article will look at using personal growth methods to evaluate what your needs really are in this new simpler economy.

Benefits of Simplifying (Minimizing)

The benefits of doing more with less, or minimizing, have tremendous health benefits. After decades of chasing after the dollar many Americans are worn out from working long hours to keep up with the rat race. Many of the worked two jobs just to keep pace with their neighbors. With the new economy of simple living they can take more time for self-development and get to know who they are and what they want out of life. This is something that they couldn’t’ do in the market driven economy because it was too fast-paced.  This is the likely reason mental illness was on the rise; because people were pressured to keep up with the economy and failed to take time for personal growth. Therefore they never really found out what they wanted and life became a constant struggle just to keep up.

Through personal growth people now can learn how to live simple with the end result being then don’t have to work so much. By only buying what they really need they can live on lower incomes, for a little while anyway. They can find the cheapest place they can afford to live and just work part-time and use the addition time to find themselves and practice self-development. From there they can set career goals and make time to attend a college or university that will help them meet their goals.

Other health benefits of living simple include the reduction of stress that comes from pushing yourself too hard. You can minimize and declutter your life as well as relationships if someone is too toxic to be around.  Life becomes easier, more manageable, and over all much more positive. This has an effect on our brains which are automatically hardwired for negativity from birth. When we retrain our minds to focus on the positive we strengthen our cortex so that we become resilient to anything bad that life throws at us. Then we move to turn the lemons into lemonade.

Other Non-tangible Benefits of Minimizing

Minimizing also works for businesses as well. Since it costs so much to hire and train a new employee a business can now only hire the ones who work the hardest to land a job. This means you have to be more entrepreneurial just to even get a job. This lets the employer know of the overall quality of your work ethic. Take into account that it only takes 20% of a company’s workforce to carry out 80% of its duties then companies can benefit from scaling back a little. If companies do downsize they usually start at the corporate level, just under the level of shareholder, with all the top executives who have a higher salary anyway. These types can use all the money they made from working at corporate to invest in a smaller business of their own within the private sector.

When it comes to manufacturing businesses are also producing less. One example is TV’s that can mount on the walls in homes. Therefore there is a lesser need for furniture. This is less stuff in an individual’s home to move and clean which leaves them more time to focus on their career and families. We can eventually live as simple as the Japanese do.

Overall the practice of minimizing can have surprising benefits. Even the Library of Congress website says the New American Dream is all about living as simple as possible. This is a foreign concept when compared to the hectic pace of the latter half of the 20th century.  As long as the people don’t lose their ambition. They can use their free time to pursue personal growth and self-development while learning general psychology principles that will benefit them personally and in their career. The time they free up by doing more with less is what is marking this new age as a spiritual age. It could mark the beginning of another Renaissance. 

- Erwin Wooten