Simple living isn't about deprivation, it is about making choices.

It's about choosing what is truly important and grabbing it with both hands. It's about learning to live without all the other less important stuff that clutters your space and time. 

Not everyone's simple living will look the same. What's important to one person will be different to what is important to another.  

I struggle to accept what my simple living looks like.

Coming to terms with my style of simple living is a recurring theme in this space: 

2011: I'm not gardening, I'm barely cooking, and i'm not even cleaning my own home....

2010: Finding MY sustainable sustainable life

2009: Who was I kidding!!!

Recently, I've been learning to accept that simple living doesn't have to mean deprivation. 

We recently spent a week at a resort in Bali. The family holiday was a generous gift from Daddy Eco's parents to celebrate his 40th Birthday. Daddy Eco's family lives on the opposite side of the country so spending time with grandparents, cousins and an aunty and uncle was a real treat for Little Eco. 

It was a trip of a lifetime - for all of us - but especially so for Little Eco. 

I'm not in any way going to try and claim that the trip wasn't extravagant. Or that our holiday didn't come with a huge ecological footprint. It did. Our flights and accommodation alone emitted an estimated 8 tonnes of CO₂. This is more than what would be emitted by the electricity consumption of an average household in a year. 

It took me a few days to lighten up and to stop feeling guilty about the environmental impact of our holiday. But the holiday wasn't about me.....it was about spending time with family. 

Little Eco was also exposed to more new sites and lessons in that single week than in the previous few months. 

I don't want to deprive her of that. 

We enjoyed the overseas travel and have decided that we would like to take Little Eco on at least one more overseas trip during her childhood (along with a whole lot of travel within Australia). I believe we can travel overseas without increasing our ecological footprint by ridiculous amounts. We just have to make sacrifices in other less important areas and look at how we can reduce the environmental impact of overseas travel. For example by exploring alternatives to plane travel, shortening flight distances, and by choosing food and accommodation wisely. 

It's about making choices. 

Do you feel like you are depriving yourself or your children in your quest to live sustainably? Is your space and time cluttered by stuff that doesn't really matter?