Ways to Simplify Your Life – Part One

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
– Leonardo Da Vinci, brilliant Renaissance artist

I am not a fan of New Year’s Resolutions. Why should there be only one day a year when you are encouraged to make a fresh start?

That said, the beginning of a new year does make me think of ways to improve myself and the world in which I take up space. Because we stand for a simpler life, allow me to share some simple living thoughts running around my already-crowded brain this January.

First, what a simpler life isn’t. It isn’t easy.
Why would I spend the time and energy baking bread with my daughter when there are a dozen fantastic bakeries within 10 miles of me? I do it…because it is satisfying and memory-making…because it is quiet time I can spend with my daughter…and because my mother baked bread with me. So if I don’t bake bread with my daughter, how will she learn to bake bread with her daughter?

Second, a simpler life isn’t ridding yourself of treasured possessions.Look at all the stuff you are surrounded with, some of it precious, some of it not. Spend some time in your favorite room of your home. Pick up at item and look at it – really look at it. Do you love it? Do you use it? Do you want it? Then keep it. If not, donate, sell or recycle it.

I have some of my mother’s jewelry, given to me by my father when she passed away almost 20 years ago. I love it.

I have a box of my children’s artwork – not every piece, just the special ones. I want it.

I have several skillets, but they each have a different purpose. I use it.

However, the clothes I haven’t worm since 2014, the magazines I haven’t read since 2017, the plastic containers clogging up my cupboards – they gotta go.

Third, a simpler life isn’t only about saving money.
Although a simpler life will typically save you money, it might be cheaper to buy your clothes, or that fancy birthday cake, than to make it yourself. Do you have the time and energy to make it yourself? Does it give you a feeling of satisfaction? Then it’s worth every penny.

Editor’s Note: Click here to read part two of Glenda’s Simplify Your Life series.

Originally published in January 2019

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Glenda Lehman Ervin is the daughter of company founder Jay Lehman and VP of Marketing. “I love talking to people who are on their journey to a simpler life. Step by step, we are all on the path to a meaningful, satisfying life. We are thrilled that Lehman’s can be a part of that journey.” Glenda lives in a woods with her husband and two children, just a few miles north of Lehman’s, in Kidron, OH. They have two cats named, surprisingly uncreatively, Baby Cat and Girl Cat.