While the advertising industry still promotes a consumerist lifestyle (for obvious reasons), there is rising interest in slow, and less.

You might have seen the #simplicity #frugality and #minimalism hashtags more often lately: they’re quietly taking over the social media’s word-of-mouth. From a distance, it looks like it’s yet another trend, but it could just be the next big turn for our civilization.

At least that’s what I wish.

Here are the main tenets of the movement of Less:

Spending less/Living more: if you cut down on unnecessary expenses you don’t have to work as much, freeing time for your family, spiritual practice, self education and contribution to charitable causes. Makes total sense from the individual perspective (less from the corporations’, but corporations only care for themselves, anyway).

if you cut down on unnecessary expenses you don’t have to work as much, freeing time for your family, spiritual practice, self education and contribution to charitable causes. Makes total sense from the individual perspective (less from the corporations’, but corporations only care for themselves, anyway). Decluttering your place : Every time we move to another apartment, we have to face an embarrassing reality: why did we buy a nose-hair trimmer in the first place? Or that santa costume for dogs? When your place is jam packed with useless junk, you realize it’s time to offer everything on e-Bay and organize a garage sale with the unsold. The next step is often to make sure your place is functional, cute and simple.

: Every time we move to another apartment, we have to face an embarrassing reality: why did we buy a nose-hair trimmer in the first place? Or that santa costume for dogs? When your place is jam packed with useless junk, you realize it’s time to offer everything on e-Bay and organize a garage sale with the unsold. The next step is often to make sure your place is functional, cute and simple. Decluttering your mind: If anxiety and depression are exploding in developing societies, it’s also because of information overdose. A human can only absorb this much sensory signals a day, passed a critical threshold, we blow a fuse. The response of the movement of less is:

Step one: cutting down on TV and internet abuse

Step two: meditating, walking into the nature and slowing down the pace of our days.

Needless to say the above totally works as long as you have the guts to apply it…As far as my experience goes, simple, less, and slower have saved me from the worst traps of the 21st century’s hysteria.

There are many reasons why the movement of less is growing: political, environmental, ethical and spiritual, they’ve already motivated the hippie generation BTW…with disappointing outcomes.

This time, though, it could be a successful revolution, because it’s in everyone’s best interests to simplify their lives and because most of the social and political abuse relies on the way we consume goods.

Fast is losing momentum, slow is taking over, you might be curious to explore this trend and try it for yourself.

Minimalistic resources:

www.becomingaminimalist.com

www.zenhabits.net

www.reddit.com/r/frugal

www.reddit.com/r/minimalism

www.mnmlist.com