Janet Luhrs

I marked this as "read" although I didn't read it all the way through. It would be difficult to do so, I think, since it's so incredibly full of information and suggestions. Instead, I skipped through, reading a bit here and a bit there and focussing my attention closely on those areas of particular interest to me (and then just picked today to say that I was, effectively, done).

While there’s more information in this book than one can really use, that's kind of the point. Luhrs presents snapshots of people engaged in the practice of voluntary simplicity as a way to give the reader ideas for his or her own life. There's no way anyone could do everything in this book, nor should they try.

This isn’t a typical “here’s how to live simply” book that flippantly presents just one way of living simply and leaves out the internal process that precedes the external changes involved in living simply. Rather, it says something more along the lines of, “Here’s the philosophy. Here’s what some people have done to live that philosophy. Maybe something here will work for you.” Identifying one’s values and discovering ways to live them is a very personal and often very difficult process, and while I, too, find the scope of information in the book overwhelming, I appreciate that Luhrs isn’t just giving the same old, “It’s simple, Stupid,” suggestions that shoot down would-be practitioners of voluntary simplicity for not doing it the one “right” way rather than inspiring them to find their own path.

With each suggestion (and I use the term loosely), Luhrs refers back to the philosophy, which is basically to identify your values and align your life with them. For example, in the section about Families, she talks about chores and allowance. She explains that before you decide what to do about chores and allowance, you need to determine what your motivation is. If you want to use chores and allowance to teach your children about money management, you'll handle things one way, If you want to use them to teach the value of work, you'll handle things a different way. She explains that both are valuable lessons, and that it's each parent's decision which lesson they're hoping to teach. She then gives examples of how real families have done things to meet each motivation. In the end, my husband and I decided to do something different from any of the things she suggests, but the ideas got us thinking and got us into a conversation that we'd been avoiding. Our families of origin handled money very differently, and we've been stymied about the best way to teach our daughter the lessons we've acquired over the years. When we're stymied, our natural tendency to procrastinate takes over. Luhrs' suggestions got us over that hurdle, and that's fairly impressive.

So, good (albeit slightly dated) suggestions, love the focus on the philosophy. If you've started doing the inner work of identifying your values and want to read about how other people are living similar values, this is a decent place to start. You can't follow this book from cover to cover and find yourself living simply. Luhrs offers you the tools, and you need to choose which are appropriate for living the values you want to live.… (mais)