Fasten your safety belts for a lightning-fast tour of a movement that encourages people to do just the opposite: Slow down.

While the dominant script dictates that people do things faster, bigger, better and stronger, and that people acquire more and more things, a class at University of Winnipeg’s Menno Simons College offers an alternative – simple living.

Listed as one of the core classes in the college’s International Development Studies program, the course is called “Study of Voluntary Simplicity.”

Voluntary simplicity is the mindful choice to be less dependent upon material things. Because practitioners consume less, they reduce their ecological footprint. Because they’re less dependent upon income, they have more time for self, family and community.

Many people are familiar with some of voluntary simplicity’s outer practices: composting, recycling, biking rather than driving, eating organic food, yoga and regular exercise. Though helpful, there’s more to simple living than just these outer forms.

“Voluntary simplicity is also the inner situation, to be really connected to what is your life purpose, why you are here, grounded in what you feel most called to do,” said Karen Ridd, who teaches the course.

It’s not exactly a new idea – countless spiritual leaders like Jesus and the Dalai Lama have practiced simple living. But perhaps globalization, consumerism and the information era have pushed society to a point of no return, where alternatives are hard to come by, particularly when it comes to the environment.

“Consumer culture has taken us over an environmental cliff and I think even people who pretend to be unaware of that and pretend to be unconcerned are still aware and concerned at some level and this brings a frenzy to life,” Ridd said. “It’s as if the party is almost over and so everybody wants to get their share.”

Mark Burch designed the course U of W offers. A freelance writer and speaker who has published a number of books on the topic, Burch insists that environmental issues are the source of trouble in so many other spheres.

“I don’t think voluntary simplicity would, say, solve the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but it certainly would help with climate change, environmental deterioration [and] with this international globalized trade which so quickly fuels conflicts,” he said.

“All of this stress has contributed to the deterioration of our communities – people feeling unloved, lost, feeling existential pain every day. If we lived more simply, less consumptively, we would have more time for each other and could re-knit social relationships. People would see their own welfare as tied-in closely to that of their neighbours.

“There would be more of a sense of common fate and a generally improved sense of social harmony.”

Voluntary simplicity offers a potential solution to much of what ails the world. As a result, many people are singing its praises.

“I think most of us, if we think about it, we have an intuitive sense of what simple living means and that intuition is often enough to get us started and its helpful to know what some of the myths are,” Burch said. “I don’t necessarily have to go to the farm, wear a black hat, submit to a religious regime, give up my computer and cell phone and … live in poverty. There are no ten commandments for simple living. You just make it up as an artwork as you go along.”

Published in Volume 64, Number 4 of The Uniter (September 24, 2009)