Once upon a time, in a quiet mountain village lived a humble stonecutter named Taro. Every day, Taro would shape rocks into bricks and tiles. He was content with his simple life and found joy in his craft.
One day, a group of wealthy merchants passed by. Envious of these people, who seemed much better off than him, Taro wished to be like them. His wish swiftly came true to his surprise, so he became a wealthy merchant.
Yet, soon he realized his newly acquired material wealth wasn’t enough. He wasn’t happy. Desiring more, he wished to become a powerful prince.
Again, his wish was granted, but he didn’t find satisfaction in his new position. In perpetual discontent, Taro wished to become the sun unaffected by the heat, then clouds undaunted by the sun, and finally a mighty mountain that withstands wind and rain from the clouds. But soon enough, a stone-cutter started chipping away at him and he realized that even mountains could be diminished, and no amount of power could make him untouched by fate.
His tiring, complicated pursuit of satisfying all these desires got him nowhere. And so, he wished to revert to his simple existence as a stone-cutter. Simplicity is the quality of being uncomplicated, which is beneficial in many areas.
By being simple, whether in our thinking, desires, or how we arrange our stuff and furnish our living spaces, we can declutter our minds and focus on what truly matters—leading to clarity, peace, and fulfillment in our lives. Moreover, simplicity may offer the most effective response in a world overwhelmed by consumerism and ambition and the discontent and eventual burnout that follow from this. This video explores the priceless benefits of being simple and why simplicity is power.
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Your support fuels this channel. Thank you. The first benefit is… Inner peace and mental clarity Many years ago, I had two guinea pigs as pets.
From what I remember, they ate and crapped a lot, so their cage needed to be cleaned regularly. But at some point, out of forgetfulness, I was late cleaning their little home and found these animals quiet and withdrawn. So, I quickly cleaned the cage and put in some fresh pine shavings and hay.
After I put the guinea pigs back, they were ecstatic and ran and jumped around as if they just won the lottery. As I started to pay attention to their behavior, I noticed that every time I tidied up their living environment, their mood shifted positively. I realized these little animals aren’t so different from humans in this regard, as the degree of tidiness of our direct surroundings directly impacts our moods.
Scientific evidence supports this claim. For example, a study from Princeton University shows that clutter can reduce our ability to focus on a task. Researchers from UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives and Families found a link between high cortisol and the number of household objects.
They concluded that clutter has a profound impact on mood and self-esteem. It’s interesting that aside from messiness, our number of household objects correlates with how we feel, according to that particular study. So, we could conclude from this that simplicity in our living space positively impacts our mood regarding mental clarity and inner peace.
Aside from simplifying our environment (and positively influencing our well-being), there are other ways to apply simplicity to our lives that enhance inner peace and mental clarity. What about simplicity in thinking? And I don’t mean oversimplifying complex matters, but not cluttering and overcomplicating simple matters, which many people tend to do.
We overanalyze things to the point of exhaustion, which often leads to anxiety or other negative mental states. When making a choice, for example, we may consider hundreds of variables, possible outcomes, other people’s opinions, et cetera. However, we could also follow our intuition and gut feeling, accepting that any choice comes with uncertainty and that we ultimately can’t predict the future, regardless of how much we analyze.
Accepting uncertainty, whatever choice we make, and the bravery to (after some reasonable consideration) just choose will make our minds much calmer. We can also apply simplicity to our desires. Suppose our desires and pleasures are many and challenging to gratify.
In that case, peace of mind will be rare, as we’re constantly battling for satisfaction. But if our desires and pleasures are simple, we need less to satisfy them, so our peace of mind will be abundant. My grandfather, a big lover of animals, once told me that he didn’t need an expensive yacht, as picking up and feeding a little bird in the garden gives him the same feeling of happiness.
Imagine the time, effort, and money he saved compared to those who desired an expensive boat, which brings us to the next benefit: Imagine a lady going to the supermarket to buy toothpaste. Inside, she encounters multiple aisles of countless brands, catering to every possible preference: whitening, herbal, sensitivity relief, natural, fluoride-free, charcoal-infused, and even unicorn-sparkled gel that tastes like bubblegum. After purchasing a tube of SpongeBob toothpaste, she feels overwhelmed and exhausted: a simple task turned into a daunting decision-making ordeal.
The paradox of choice is real. It’s a byproduct of our consumerist society that offers many options, unlike the old times, which were much simpler. There wasn’t much to choose from, which was both a curse and a blessing.
We didn’t have twelve kinds of SpongeBob toothpaste, but we also didn’t have the burden of choice we have now. Let’s face it. How much of our time do we spend on making choices?
For each item, we must choose between ten brands in the supermarket. If we want to buy a new phone, there are hundreds to choose from, from low to high-end. The same applies to laptops, televisions, fridges, and vacuum cleaners.
And take dating, for example. I remember the good old times when I was around 16 or 17 years old when you wanted to find an attractive person, you just had to wait for the weekends and go to the local disco where everyone went to, and those people, in that place at that moment, were your options. So, if you wanted anything, the moment was there.
Now, the emergence of dating apps cursed the picky among us with literally hundreds of millions of users. The time the average person spends swiping and chatting on those apps just to get a date is ridiculous. With all these choices, all these products screaming to be purchased, all this stuff we’re afraid to miss out on, it’s pretty easy to get lost.
We spend so much energy, time, and money acquiring all these things we’re supposed to have that consumerism has become a religion, with shopping malls as the new churches, in which we don’t look for God but seek to purchase the bigger, better thing. So, what’s a more potent way to break free from this than embracing simplicity? How about cultivating simple tastes, simple pleasures, simple choices, going for “good enough” instead of “always the best” (yes, that counts for dating, too)?
How about cutting down your options instead of exposing yourself to the entire arsenal of choices, not comparing too much, and endlessly analyzing which purchase to make? How about contentment independent from all these tidal waves of stuff? Such an embrace of simplicity frees us from rampant consumerism, which is an excellent benefit because being free from these shackles means we can spend our energy on, well, just living life, unless shopping till you drop and spending hours choosing what to buy is how you wish to live.
Quite related to consumerism is the next benefit of simplicity: In a previous video about self-worth and how this often depends on achievement, I mention philosopher Byung-Chul Han and his view on recent societal changes. He observed that we’ve transitioned from a disciplinary society to an achievement society. A disciplinary society is defined by prohibition: what we cannot do.
It’s a world of barracks, prisons, psychiatric facilities, and factories. An achievement society is characterized by fancy corner offices, fitness studios, banks, airports, and shopping malls. The former generates criminals and madmen, the latter losers and failures.
When we compare those societies, we may think that the people of the disciplinary society are oppressed and even enslaved, which is kind of true, but the people in the achievement society are free and blessed with endless opportunities. But when we look at it, those in the achievement society are just as enslaved, maybe even more. But instead of being whipped by their oppressors, they whip themselves and call it ambition, achieving success, grinding, crushing it.
Being ‘functional’ and ‘relevant’ (and simply not being a loser) in an achievement society requires immense effort. We must keep up with the Joneses, polish our LinkedIn accounts with fancy job titles and resumes, and show the world how we’re leading these amazing lives of boundless purpose and uninterrupted happiness. What an exhausting existence.
Perhaps just shutting your mouth and beavering away in a factory from 9 to 5 as a nameless nobody and getting scolded by the supervisor occasionally may actually be a more relaxing, carefree way to live. At least we don’t have to spend the rest of our free time convincing others how successful we are. So, how can simplicity help resist the pressure of the achievement society and the burnout it eventually leads to?
According to Han, excess positivity characterizes our society. It’s all about ambition, success, accomplishment, et cetera, which sounds good. But an excess of this positivity, which is the case in an achievement society, isn’t all that great, as it harms our well-being.
Han argues that we can counterbalance this positivity by adding more ‘negativity’ to our lives, which may sound weird, but here’s what he said about it: “Not all negativity is destructive. Not infrequently, forms of negativity such as hesitation, pausing, boredom, waiting, or rage prove constructive, though they are threatened with disappearance in the course of society's increasing positivization. ” End quote.
What characterizes these forms of negativity is that they carry an aspect of nothingness. They’re like little breaks from the constant striving and go-getting. I’m not sure about rage, but things like boredom, pausing, waiting, and even hesitation fit the idea of simplicity quite well.
How about doing less, slowing down, not doing many things simultaneously, but focusing on cultivating one or two? Less is more. We may end up with smaller bank accounts and less amazing Instagram posts, but we’re also less likely to burn out and might experience life much deeper and more beautifully.
Instead of constant self-optimization, what about more leisure? Instead of running from goal to goal, how about sitting down and thinking about what we’ve been doing all these years? Chances are we’re miserable.
So, could there be a correlation between our misery and our self-exploitation? I’m in Indonesia at the moment. And the other day, I was paying close attention to the guys who help people park their cars in exchange for a couple of thousands of rupiah.
There are many of them. And their social standing is among the lowest. Even though their job is helpful, it’s also pretty laid back.
They mostly sit around, chatting, laughing, smoking cigarettes, and when a car arrives or departs, they do their thing, get their money, and then chill out again. I even saw one invited a whole group of friends, and they were just having a blast in the parking lot. They make a nice living, I heard.
And overall, they look pretty happy: they look happier than the people getting out of those cars, who may have it better financially but generally pay for it with stresses these parking guys don’t seem to have. Imagine you could be happy and content doing such a simple job. As I said, these parking guys have low social standing.
But who knows? The simple guy parking your car may have been there. Just like the stone cutter, he was the sun, the clouds, and the mountain, but then he realized that the simple life yields as much contentment as those prestigious positions but at a much lower price.
Thank you for watching.
