For the many years I taught yoga and spent time studying in an ashram, the word ‘practice’ was used repeatedly. Yoga is a practice, mantra is a practice, life is a practice.
I had been writing online about motherhood and ordinary, everyday life for eight years when I realised that simple living was a practice, too. It wasn’t something that I was ever going to perfect, it wasn’t a milestone I was ever going to reach, I could just practise bits and pieces and slowly establish new habits with each season. In doing so, I was learning and allowing my perspective to shift without any fixed or idealistic goals. It felt somewhat freeing and mostly, very doable.
It was around the same time that I made the decision to stop working with brands to advertise their products. It felt like an ethical conflict to write about simple living and simultaneously promote consumerism. Yes, we need to buy things. However, after much to-ing and fro-ing, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want my readers to engage with my work and step away feeling as though they wanted something they couldn’t afford. I also didn’t want my tiny corner of the internet to feed an obligation or desire to consume.
Of course, I was a mother of four at that stage and my freelance writing work was, as it always is, unreliable. The money would have been helpful. But if I’ve learnt anything from writing online for almost 20 years, it’s that authenticity is key to establishing and maintaining a readership.
I recently stumbled across a note by a fellow writer here on substack who was questioning the paid subscription side of this platform. She mentioned that she wants it to be purely creative instead of capitalistic. So I responded with my own truths about writing and earning a living from it:
Living simply (and perhaps creatively) in a culture driven by capitalism is possible, but there will be many times when you feel on the outer. And yet reminding yourself that simplicity is a practice is comforting when you find yourself wondering about the world and the climate and your small contribution to making positive change. You will also probably wonder: what’s the point?