In the '80s Boomers watched traditional business-world rules jerked out from under breadwinners. A corporation that an employee had poured his life's energy into for decades, for which he had frequently missed family gatherings, could now brush him off like cat hair. If ordinary Americans are looking for a measure of financial independence, it may be because a rapacious corporate leadership has forced the issue. Richard Harris, a voluntary simplicity devotee and retired IBM executive, displays the book that changed his life. In this hyper-consumptive environment, buying only what you need is a little like trying to sip from a firehose.
Simple living is relative, too.
In America, our lawn mowers are sheltered better than the average Third World family, for whom simplification is not a choice. In the long term, Americans spending less, buying less, and working less may mean fewer divorces, less juvenile delinquency, less therapy, a healthier population and a healthier planet. Because of our overconsumption, the average American causes 100 times more damage to the global environment than a citizen of a poor country, according to the New World Road Map Foundation. Also, the desire to accumulate stuff may begin to wear off as Baby Boomers age. Our cookie-cutter view of success must change.