The Beauty of Simplicity : Spartan Living

here is no better advice than K.I.S.S.

Keep it Simple Stupid.

Simplicity works. Complexity is often a waste of time. The Deadlift, for example, is just about the simplest exercise in existence. Pick up a heavy weight from the ground. That’s it. But this simple exercise will produce more results that the most complex of exercises or any combination of complex exercises. The guy who deadlifts all the time is worlds apart in muscle mass and strength than the guy who stands one-legged on a bosu ball while curling and pressing kettlebells.

If it can be said effectively in one sentence there is no earthly reason to expand it to 4 or 5 sentences. Succinctness and brevity are always more effective than 13 pages of literary diarrhea. If it can be done in 5 minutes there is no reason to stretch it out to 30 minutes.

Simplicity makes things easier. Hard work is its own reward, but making things harder just because is flat out stupid. If it can be done one of two ways 1) the simple way and 2) the complex way, only the idiot takes the complex way for the same (or often inferior) result.

Food cooked with 10 ingredients is always inferior in taste and nutrition to food cooked simply and with minimal ingredients. Steak and eggs cooked in butter and seasoned with salt and pepper tastes better than any restaurant meal with a list of fancy ingredients and a 30 minute prep time.

Paying $5,000 cash for a used pickup truck that you will own is always a better idea than leasing a brand new vehicle with a $2500 down payment, paying $487.92 every month for the next 48 months, limiting yourself to 12,000 miles per year and then giving the vehicle back to the dealership and starting the process over again. You could explain those options to the dimmest of dimwits and have him tell you which is the better choice.

Living simply allows you to live freer. You could buy yourself a bunch of fancy new dishes, eating from a week’s worth of dishes before you have to wash them or you could own 2 forks, 2 knives, 2 spoons, 2 bowls, 2 plates, 2 glasses and a spatula and be just as happy with less clutter.

You could have a collection of 1,000 DVD’s that take up a galactic amount of space or you could get rid of them and put all your media onto a computer or an external disk. You could buy new CD’s or you could simply put 5,000 songs onto an mp3 player and listen to anything you want at the drop of a hat. You could have a nice big book collection or you could get an e-book reader and have only one physical book and thousands to read. You could get yourself an expensive phone that will alert facebook if you’re stranded in the Australian Outback or you could get a cheap phone that makes phone calls and sends text messages. You could constantly buy new clothes and never be happy with what you have or you could buy a few items that you can wear for years.

You could strive to own more stuff and deal with the self-imposed imprisonment or you can strive to own less stuff and be free.

The choice is yours. I have already made mine.