A simpler life. In a shadow cast by the jarring beginning of the new millennium, simplicity has an undeniable appeal. Global conflicts, domestic security concerns, and a stalling economy can make keeping up with the Joneses feel like, at best, a misguided luxury. Now is not a time for excess; it is a time, it would seem, to focus on "what really matters." Thus the appeal of voluntary simplicity, a notion that combines the freedom of modernity with certain comforts and virtues of the past.