So I Took This Class on Voluntary Simplicity...

It all started sometime around the time when Nicole graduated from college a year ago right about now.

Actually, it started way before that, when Nicole decided to be an environmental studies major, and actually it really started way way way before that when my mom would garden and make my clothes and find ways to stretch a pound of hamburger for a hungry family of five with 3 teenagers--but for the purposes of this blog post, we'll start at last May.

In our proud moment of knowing that we had helped to launch a college graduate into the world, there was a tremendous sense of relief.

For it seems as though we had been planning and saving and sacrificing and supporting Nicole and her dreams--and our dreams for her--since the very beginning.

We worked very hard. We saved. We stayed out of debt. We didn't fill our lives with a buncha stuff that we didn't really need. And all (OK maybe not all, but a lot) for that oh-so-important piece of paper and the opportunities it would provide her.

While Nicole was toiling through her senior year, Beccah was just beginning her journey towards her goals as a college freshman. It was the one year we had been dreading financially, well, pretty much since the day I did the math early on and realized that we would have two kids in college for one year, if all went according to plan. So, once we had cleared away the debt with which I came to our marriage, Mark and I started saving for our daughters' educations.

It was a lofty, far-in-the-future period of time that became part of the present and then a memory in the past much too quickly.

But once the dreaded year of two girls in college had passed, we were in a position to re-evaluate our prirorities.

This is where the class on voluntary simplicity comes in. Nicole works at the Utah Society for Environmental Education and they are an amazing non-profit organization that works to bring the environment into the dialogue of the community and environmental programs into the state's classrooms. As part of their mission, they offer classes that bring environmental issues to the fore, one of which is this class we took on voluntary simplicity.

The literal definition of voluntary simplicity is to "choose to live a simpler life." It's all about minimizing the things that take us out of enjoying our lives and maximizing the things that do. Of course, things like making a living, taking care of ourselves and our loved ones, and maintaining our living spaces can take up a great deal of time and energy.

For more on what voluntary simplicity is all about, click here.

The quote by Hans Hoffman on the cover of the booklet we read and discussed in the class says, "The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

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Ironically, the trick is learning which parts of your life are the necessary ones, and which are the unnecessary ones getting in the way.

Throughout the course of the class we were asking ourselves questions like:

How much money do we need to make in order to be happy?
What does work mean to us and what is its purpose in our lives?
Do we have the time, and maybe more importantly, do we have the energy, to do the things we truly enjoy?
Could we live more with less?

My answers? As follows:

How much money do I need to make in order to be happy? We are very, very fortunate in that we could be happy making less money. We would have to cut back, sacrifices would need to be made, but we could be happy.
What does work mean to me and what is its purpose in my life? For me, work is all about contributing to something greater than myself, being creative and engaging my brain in ways that are meaningful to me, interacting with people I care about and who also care about me, and to feel that I am helping to make the world spin a little more smoothly by bringing joy in the form of the product I help create and finding joy in the people I get to know through that product. If I were in it for the money, I'd be doing something else.
Do you have the time, and maybe more importantly, do you have the energy, to do the things you truly enjoy? As much as I love my job, it completely drains me. Like many of you, I arrive home utterly exhausted with not much left to give. It's the age-old argument, can any of us really have it all? For me, I would like to be able to spend more time with my family and friends, hike more, write more, garden more, cook more, entertain more, and to stay on top of household tasks and errands better. Like most of us, I'm sure, I'd like to be able to breathe a little slower and enjoy a little faster.
Could you live more with less? Yes. I could. Emphasis on live more.

Mark and I agonized over these issues. We talked as honestly with one another as we ever have. We looked at all the scenarios.

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Bottom line: Mark is the main bread-winner in our family. If we were going to make any changes, it would not be with him. But if we made changes with my job, he would benefit greatly from the time and energy I could commit to tasks that would take pressure off of him at home.

The other bottom line: I love what I do as creative editor at Paper Crafts magazine. I didn't want to quit. If I learned anything from looking hard at the answers to the aforementioned questions, it was that the work that I'm currently doing is extremely important to me.

Underscoring the point: The economy. What if Mark got laid off? What if the economy continued to tank beyond what it has already done? How could we even be considering such a thing in such a volatile time? And as we continued to explore our values, we began to realize that we are considering this because it is such a volatile time. The rise in gas prices last summer, the plummet of the stock market in the past few months, and the lay-offs that we all have been mourning have, in fact, caused us to take this very hard look at our priorities.

I decided to approach my editor-in-chief, Jennifer Schaerer, to see if I had any options.

She listened. She nodded her head in understanding. She was more receptive than I could have imagined, although I shouldn't have been surprised because bottom line: she is an excellent manager who is very tuned in to her people and will do what she can to make them happy in their lives because she knows she will get better work from them in the long run.

Did I have any options? It turns out that I absolutely do.

Effective May 1, I began a 24-hour work week. I continue to perform the tasks essential to being the creative editor at Paper Crafts which entails, among other things, overseeing the content in the magazines we produce, writing and sending out the calls for submission, trend-watching to keep our publications fresh, overseeing the content for the PC101 column, writing the Moxie Fabs column, and hosting the Moxie Fab World blog.

My esteemed colleague, Susan R. Opel, has received a promotion in the bargain, as she will be performing the tasks that I will no longer have time to do, mainly overseeing submissions judgings, sending out acceptances, and following through with designers in the project-acquiring phase of magazine building. She is a rock star.

I am very happy that my need to cut back turned into a good thing for my dear friend, Susan.

I am very grateful to have a flexible, open-minded boss and a supportive team.

I am grateful to have an opportunity to be a more attentive wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and in many respects, creative editor.

I am very grateful to have taken this journey with my husband and life-partner, for together we are stronger in our purpose.

I am very grateful to have the chance to live a simpler life.

Comments

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Live more, my friend. You deserve it.

Posted by: Ms. Maxwell | May 12, 2009 at 12:42 AM

Wonderful wonderful. It's nice when you realize that you really CAN have it all. I'm so happy for you!

Posted by: Lindsay S. | May 12, 2009 at 02:10 AM

good.for.YOU!

less IS more, enjoy every second of your new simplicity Cath, you deserve it!
{and I am glad that you will have more time to write, and do hope that you will continue to share your gift of prose here with us!}
~♥~rae

Posted by: rae | May 12, 2009 at 07:04 AM

Good for you, Catherine. I know you will reap many rewards from this. My last two years at Alta were half-time, and what a difference it made. Before that, I was so tired all that time that my free time was really time I used to gear up for the next work day. I am happy for you.

Posted by: Marilyn Moore | May 12, 2009 at 12:22 PM