Henry David Thoreau would tell a person who has too many details in his/her life to find “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.” He states in Waldenthat “Our life is frittered away by detail”, and the only way to happiness is to remove those details from your life. Thoreau challenges his reader to “instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary, eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in...
Henry David Thoreau would tell a person who has too many details in his/her life to find “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.” He states in Walden that “Our life is frittered away by detail”, and the only way to happiness is to remove those details from your life. Thoreau challenges his reader to “instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary, eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.” It is all the “stuff” we accumulate and the want for those things that causes us to waste or “fritter away” our lives. For Thoreau, the key to life is to have and use only what you need. He says to limit what you do and your responsibilities, and to “keep your accounts on your thumb nail.” Thoreau’s way of life includes returning to nature to find oneself and what is important. Many people today are adopting Thoreau’s Spartan-like* vision of life as seen in the popularity of little houses, community gardens, recycling, and other lifestyles beckoning to simpler times.
*(borrowed from Self-Reliance written by Thoreau’s contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson)
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