from the Introduction...

Voluntary simplicity beginsi personal action. It has little meaning part
from how it configures individual lives. Anyone can understand it. anyone can practice it in some way, regardless of income, cultural background, or educational attainment. Practicing simplicity requires no special training, expert advice, or official sanction. The practice of simplicity begins with individuals and is well attuned to the humanistic outlook of modern society. It also reconnects a person with the traditional values of thrift, temperance, self-reliance, responsibility, and, where appropriate, spiritual asceticism. It immediately empowers people to make realistic, creative changes in understandable areas of their lives at no additional cost and at whatever pace is comfortable. Moreover, voluntary simplicity is highly "adjustable" since a person can simplify his or her life to any degree and in whatever way they find most congenial. It follows that how we practice simple living will change with each of life's seasons and situations.