This personal development article is appealing for those interested about this topic.

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A simple life is more than just living on a small salary. You can be a millionaire and yet live simply, free from common worries. You can be the president of a big and competitive company yet live in complete simplicity. You can be a dogged salesperson targeting high sales quotas and still live simply.

A simple life is abandoning most unnecessary vanities. It means you will have to give up some things in life that you really do not need. A favorite smart term in business today is “prioritizing.” Abandoning is more than just prioritizing. Abandoning is like disposing of garbage because you do not need them. You do not include your garbage in your priority list — you throw them away for good.

 

A simple life is different from a meaningless life. The former implies simplicity, yet has a purpose. You must have a mission or a goal in life to live it to the fullest. The latter implies having no direction at all. Research has shown that many employees who retire, die 1 to 2 years later. Although stress is not in the equation, these employees might have lost something very significant – having a calling or purpose in life. 

 

A simple life personifies the following:

 

1.         ELIMINATE SELF-IMPORTANCE.

Self-importance is the basic culprit or cause of vanity. Commercialism feeds on vanity. We don’t mean a disregard for your welfare. Welfare is different from vanity. The former is a concern for well-being that is having just enough of what you NEED. Vanity is craving more than what meets your DESIRE. The former is a responsibility. The latter entails selfishness and self-centeredness. It is mere egoism. It is mostly doing something to prove a point or to prove your self - to feed the ego. As long as you’re out to prove something, you’re susceptible to pressure. Proving something means you are competing — with who is better or has something better.

 

If you grew up in a city, chances are, you’ve been raised in an environment of proving your worth. You have been exposed to competition. The usual city motto is “Not just at par—yours must be better.”

           

The “Standard”

 

“Standard” often means what is generally expected and accepted. “Generally” implies that the people took it upon themselves to impose on others what they expect and accept.

 

The “standard,” or what is generally accepted or expected, is often just the whim of some self-important people given authority also by other self-important people. If you join their self-importance, you will never be able to escape the cycle of vanity, and you will never live a simple life.

 

Standards, indeed, are necessary to gauge good performance and to establish right and wrong. However, they must be TRUE standards that are objective and unbiased.

 

Standards often times can be manipulated to serve a selfish end. These standards are subjective or biased, and are oftentimes false. They can be ruthlessly used for commercialism. Standards will serve us right as long as they are unstained by ulterior or deceitful motives.

 

If you don’t succumb to the general “standard,” how would you know if you are doing right or wrong? How would you know if you are improving or worsening?

The questions therefore should be, “Is what you are doing increasing or decreasing your self-importance? Is it promoting the cravings of your ego, or promoting simplicity in you? Is it reducing your pride? Is it making you meek?” This standard leads to a quiet, simple life.

 

Whatever you are doing, though it looks good to people and gains their approval, will likely lead you away from a simple life if it promotes your self-importance. Anything that feeds self-importance, or the ego, is unlikely to end up in a long, healthy, and happy life.

 

2.         ELIMINATE NEGATIVE STRESS

 

Necessary stress is called eustress. You need it to boost good performance. It works more like a challenge to give your best to a certain task. You can have this stress and still live simply.

 

What we don’t like is distress. It is having more stress than you need to accomplish a task happily. It is stress born out of stiff competition. Having to pay for bills incurred by things you really need causes eustress. Having to pay for bills incurred by materialistic desires, especially when the bills have mounted up, causes distress. Once desires are fed, they grow into devouring monsters.