Is it possible to live simply in midlife?

The "yeah, buts" of my younger years led to complication creep. So how do I strip down now?

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When I was in my early 20s, I read a book about simple living authored by a couple several decades older than me. Whether they were newly-empty-nesters or retirement age, I can’t remember; all my 23-year-old brain registered is that they were somewhere in middle age - in other words, a lot older than I was then.

The book documented a typical upwardly-mobile path through the couple’s 20s, 30s, and into their 40s, dominated by career advancement and the material rewards realized thereof; until the couple realized they were on a hamster wheel and decided to chuck it all, downsize, and live happily ever after.

While the cultural ideal of “simple living” was nothing new in the year 2000, the idea of eschewing traditional trappings of success in order to seek a humbler, slower-paced life with family and home at its core held great appeal to me at that moment in time.

After all, I was young, with an incomplete college education, no real career prospects, and two little kids. Words like “frugal” and “simple” were ways to reclaim the narrative around my family’s lifestyle: positioned in this way, living in a small apartment and driving a rusty old car became outward signs of having opted out of an exhausting and extractive system. They were choices to be proud of, rather than embarrassed by.

Also, “simple” sounds way better than '“broke.”

So at that tender age, I vowed that, going forward, I would use the principles introduced to me in the book - and multiple other titles like it that I gorged on, perhaps overcomplicating “simplicity” right out of the gate - as guideposts for the decisions I made so that I wouldn’t have to make drastic lifestyle changes in middle age. Instead of “downsizing” later, as these middle-aged couples were doing, I told myself I’d never get to that point. By the time I got to my 40s or 50s, I’d have been working toward a “simple” life all long.

Welp.

I guess you can see where this is headed, right? At nearly-46, though the idea of “simplicity” has still remained lodged somewhere in my subconscious as a north star to shoot for, my life still feels way more complicated and consumption-based than I’d like much of the time. There are multiple reasons for that and even more potential remedies, many of which I’ll address in future posts; but first, let me start with the question that I think many of us find ourselves asking in midlife:

“How did I get here in the first place?”

I put the responsibility of the “complication creep” squarely on what I call the “yeah-buts” that dominated most of my career and money choices from about my mid-20s on, despite my youthful intentions. “We don’t really need a bigger house.” Yeah, but…the kids are growing so fast, wouldn’t more space be nice? “Taking on this contract will mean less time to spend with the family.” Yeah, but…it’ll help us get out of debt faster, which will be good for us all in the long run, right?”

Or, my personal brand of over-complication: opportunity collection. “I don’t really have money or time to invest in _____ right now.” Yeah but…think of the freedom and simplicity maximizing this opportunity could lead to down the road!

And all those yeah buts, so reasonable taken one at a time, have a nasty way of compounding into a big snarled web of obligations. Nobody purposely sets out with the intent of living a complicated life; it’s just that every choice leads to another, and then another, and the further bound up we get, the harder it is to disentangle ourselves.

Also - and this is something I’m only just learning in my mid-40s - lasting simplicity and freedom really can’t be purchased with work or with money. Hustling can help set you up for more financial freedom, but it can also just lead to more work. Investing in the right opportunity may create breathing room, but it can also create obligations. It’s quite possible to dig a deeper hole by overcomplicating simplicity. The hardest lesson I’ve had to learn is that living a simpler life is far less about what you add, and much more about the space that’s left when you take away.

We live in a consumerist society where spending and acquiring - and, of course, more hustle - is sold as the solution to pretty much everything, and I’m as vulnerable to that messaging as anyone else. So I don’t blame myself for giving in to all those yeah-buts over the years. Hustling for new opportunities and collecting the “right” material possessions, especially while my marriage was struggling and later, in the throes of early divorce, felt like a protective blanket I could wrap around my vulnerable family.

In hindsight, I can see clearly how a need for security in those tender years led me to a lot of decisions I’m not sure I’d make again. But that family is shifting and changing now as my kids get older, and that opens up an opportunity to re-evaluate. The life I’m creating for myself, along with my new spouse, may have little to do with what I thought I needed to give my young children a decade or two ago. They aren’t babies anymore, after all.

Relative to many other people my age, I know my life is actually still fairly simple. I live pretty modestly in a low cost-of-living area, my work life is flexible, my life balance is good. Yet I still find myself struggling, from time to time, with the frustration of realizing I walked right into a trap I set for myself by creating complications in my life (some big, some small.)

And yet, what’s the solution? I love a good project, and wouldn’t happily give up any of the things I’m working on now. Does that tendency mean I’m doomed to over-committing, over-consuming…overcomplicating?

In my 20s, I didn’t understand how life could get away from you while you were busy raising kids. Now I have a lot more empathy, because I’ve lived through all the yeah, but’s that got me here. It’s something I’m grappling with on the cusp of my 46th birthday, because if there’s ever a time to get a handle on our personal tendencies and patterns around everything from consumption to hustle culture, it’s now.

When else, after all?

I’ll be exploring “simple living” at midlife - what that means to me, and what it may mean to you - here at Reinventing, and would love to hear what you think.

Did you also find yourself giving into the yeah buts when you were younger, and how did they compound and create complication? What kind of life would you like to create for yourself in your empty-nest years - and how can you start now?