Downshifting, or minimal living, is a lifestyle trend based on one question: is more necessarily better?
The reasons for asking this question have a variety of sources: concern for the environment; job losses; retirement plans running askew with drops in the stock market; or even questioning capitalism itself which seems to dictate keep growing, or die.
Most of those who are downshifting their lives don’t even know there is a new word for it. Some call it downshifting. Others call it a frugal lifestyle, minimal living.
Clode Deschamps, for example, a 45-year old kindergarten teacher began downshifting her life over fifteen years ago, and has not looked back with even the slightest pang of regret. She has never called it downshifting. She prefers to think of it as a conscious lifestyle, or just being me compared to a lifestyle she feels pushed upon her by prescribed by society.
For fifteen years, she has been working only half-days, earning half the salary of her peers, but having twice the time and energy for her class of four and five year olds. Every morning she gets up at six in the morning, brimming with excitement for the day ahead. She spends at least two hours preparing for her class, designing pages for the children to colour, or preparing crafts. It has never occurred to her to recycle craft materials, or even a coloring sheet on a given theme from one year to the next.
She walks her dog and then rushes to school – a twenty-minute walk from her home and arrives early to play with the children in the playground. After her workday is over at 11:30, she usually lingers around the schoolyard, helping other teachers, or interacting with students from other classes during lunch. Picture a 45-year-old woman teaching children to do cartwheels in the halls.
She returns home sometime during the lunch hour and the rest of the day is hers to spend as she pleases: taking her dog for a long walk, visiting with her mother, gardening, helping her neighbours, reading, or pouring more energy into her next day’s lessons.
“If I worked full-time,” Clode explained, “I wouldn’t have the energy I need for the children. I wouldn’t have the energy to play with them and give them all the attention they truly deserve.
People sometimes do question her decision to arrive early at work and to stay there afterwards.
“I love my job and I love being with the kids,” she said. “The difference is that when you’re working half-days, the extra time you spend is because you want to be there, not because you have to be there. And that’s a big difference!”
Working half-days and earning a half-income has been so engrained into her lifestyle that she says she couldn’t imagine living with half the time, or what she would do with double the money. Someone who has never been attracted to fashion trends or designer labels, a “minimal life” is not how she would describe her life at all.
She does drive an old car (a 15-year-old station wagon) and lives in a small apartment. She buys only quality second-hand clothes, seldom eats in restaurants, and watches only about an hour of television each day. At the end of every month, she has always had money left over to put into her savings and retirement plans.
Her minimal life was inspired, Clode says, by the likes of Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and the book Walden, by Henry David Thoreau.
“It’s not a question of living without things,” Clode said. “I have everything I need and everything I want.”
“My family thinks I’m crazy for living the way I do,” she laughs, “but I think the only important thing is if you are doing what you love. Sure, I drive an old car, but if it gets a dent, who cares? It’s old!”
“I’m living the life I want and I love my life. Why would I want to change that?”
{ 2 comments }
david,
great post.
i completely agree. once you start doing what you want, it is surprising how little of “other things” you need. and you prioritize. so for me–one great outing like i had last night (Alice Smith at B.B. King’s in NYC) feeds and nourishes me more than one every night that barely touches the surface of ‘good times’ like I used to have before I embraced my current lifestyle. Moreover, I am almost embarrassed to tell people where I attend yoga classes. It is expensive. It is all for this one instructor really. But I am no longer hesitant becuase I realized there are many other things I have stopped doing in order to go there.
It is about choices.
Freedom is a choice and comes with needing less because you are wanting more to live.
~a.
I’m glad you’re not hesitant to tell people about the things so vital to your life! How does that cliche go, those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind… they don’t matter. Sounds like you’re in the best place in the world right now. Keep me posted!!!
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