In the mid nineties I discovered Vicky Robin's book, Your Money or Your Life and saw the PBS documentary, Affluenza. It was the beginning of the Internet and I found a "voluntary simplicity" network online. There was also PBS's Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska.
At that time I understood "simple living" as a term to encompass the ideas of living on less than you earn and filling your life with experience rather than material things. It also covered working less (and therefore earning less) but having more free time and less stress. All of this appealed to me very much in my early 20s just staring out.
In the last few years I've seen the concept of "minimalism" rise up and am having trouble understanding the difference. It does seem more preoccupied with sparse surroundings, efficiency and technology. I'm aware of some books and blogs by different guys named "Josh." I saw a really bad documentary last year featuring one said Josh. It seems the concept of "minimalism" is more marketable as there are tons of blogs and Instagram accounts about it. However, the ideas of minimalism also appeal to me in terms of being more efficient and productive.
What do you all think? Is there a difference? Is it just asthetics or does it run deeper? What type of person do they each appeal to? If there's no difference, then why the different terms?
Submitted April 29, 2017 at 02:43PM by hazelbrowne http://ift.tt/2pJccKW
