Simple living and unused telephone booths

The idea of simple living has always been appealing to me. Something about living a pure and simple life just seems so unburdened. I bet that most of the time that people spend cleaning and organizing their homes could better be described as finding places to put useless crap. I've experienced it in the past. Organizing stuff that I can't remember the last time I used and putting it somewhere to ensure that I won't have to go through the same thing again. Usually it is a perfectly good waste of space and time; time that could more enjoyably be spent doing anything, perhaps even nothing.

I'm not talking about the never bathing and walking around barefoot kind of simple, but just living within my means and not accumulating unnecessary and useless stuff. Even in my own moderately frugal way of life, from time to time I decide that there's something I must have, and eventually I justify it and end up buying it. And usually it just ends of being something I really could have done without.

Here in Southern California, many people have a hobby that they like to call shopping. Those who approach life in this fashion (pun intended) usually are in no ways happier, are broke all the time, and for that still really don't have anything that cool. So what does it accomplish? Beats me. Apparently it fulfills their immediate need for gratification which usually doesn't produce any sort of benefit in either the short or long term.

The other day I started reading a book about voluntary simplicity, and the most important thing I've learned so far about simple living in modern Western society is to not deny yourself a material existence, but instead to remove needless distractions, excess clutter, and complication. Doing so allows a greater degree of focus on other important things, in turn leading to a more conscious and deliberate lifestyle.

As people yearn for more in the way of material goods, financial prosperity, and success, as they chase their version of the "American Dream", they find that it is unattainable, and they lose sight of what is important, becoming psychologically and spiritually hollow. Their success ultimately becomes their demise.

I found a quote from Gandhi which says, "As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it. If you were to give it up in a mood of self sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and the unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you." Sounds like good words to live by.

On another note, today I drove by a parking lot with two telephone booths in it. Both were in use and someone was actually waiting for one. I didn't think anyone used phone booths anymore.