PERSPECTIVES ON BALANCED LIVING
By Coralie Darsey-Malloy

SIMPLIFIED LIVING

Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplify, simplify!

-Henry David Thoreau

After leaving a home we loved and chasing a dream of acreage on the lake in Kenora, Ontario we were given a second chance to return to the very house we left. It was during this time that my husband, David and I began the process of simplifying our lives. We finally began to realize that we were not going to be able to do everything we'd been trying to do. That realization started us down a very different path. We sat down and figured out what we really wanted to do and what was realistic for us to achieve. That process forced us to begin simplifying our lifestyle and allowed us to determine what really mattered and we had the time, energy and resources to accomplish.

Initially we began to assess the outer areas of our life such as our household, finances, careers, social life and how much time was taken up in the routines of our general lifestyle. The first and most significant decision made was to stop buying, selling our home whenever we got it to where we wanted it and moving every two years. We systematically de-cluttered the house and got rid of everything we were not using or wearing. Finding a home for things and creating order was a delightful and liberating experience. The next step was to convert our large garden to hardy perennials and that reduced the amount of maintenance immensely.

Simplifying the outer aspects of life created new opportunities to discover areas of our inner lives that we could simplify as well. By maintaining our outer lives in greater order it was easier to look within and find ways to increase my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being and have more

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