Stylish Simple Living...what should you keep!

Bob Lowry wrote a post the other day about living simply but not having a simple life. He spoke of people going over board with the "simple living" principal stripping their life of all those things that are not needed. I began to think about that idea.

Rooftops of Sapa (edited with Snapseed on ipad)

We have just returned from a trip to Viet Nam where we visited a community in north Vietnam called Sapa. Here children played without shoes or even pants on days when I was wearing a coats and scarves. The people that lived in the countryside lived on the bare minimum. But, they still gathered things of beauty around them.  Native costumes with lively colors adorned the women and they spent their days weaving and embroidering things that they sold in markets. In fact, beauty surrounded them. On some level it was as though the difficulties of their life was made more bearable because of the colors that they embraced. I think that we can take a lesson from this. Not all the things in our life are disposable. There are things we should never get rid of; beauty, cleanliness, friendship, learning and family.

Native Women bartering!

Bob talked about the person that rid themselves of all but 15 things.  He thought it was a bit "silly". I think that if you are going to take away all but 15 things, the 5 things I listed above had be the things that stay. So of all your personal possessions that you can live without, those things that make your heart sing because they are beautiful should not be let go.  Hang on to what you can because, even when things get bad, they will make your life better.

I invite you to read Bob's article and see what he has done. Simple Living Can Become Silly is one of the best I have seen recently.