Simple living and a sustainable life, there are so many reasons to commit. It is natural for someone who first approaches these concepts to believe that they are just about the environment. While the environment is an essential concern, the benefits of these choices extend into many other areas of life. Health, happiness, and serenity also result, but financial freedom should not be overlooked.

The content below is largely a reprint of a story posted yesterday on CNN Money, written by Geoff Colvin. I thought it was an important story to share, being that a crisis may be approaching, and I believe that answers can be found in a sustainable life.

We made it through the bursting of the Internet bubble and now the bursting of the real estate bubble. Next we may be approaching the end of the most worrisome bubble of all: the standard-of-living bubble.

That conclusion comes from the latest data on credit card debt. It’s growing fast, but the problem is bigger than that - and to understand what it means, we have to take a few steps back.

For the past several years, the average inflation-adjusted total pay of American workers hasn’t been increasing. That means we haven’t been building a foundation for increases in our living standard. You might be tempted to say that by definition our living standard couldn’t have increased, but that’s not quite right. Even with stagnant real incomes, we can always live a little better every year through borrowing and pretending that our living standard is still rising, just as it was for decades.

So the Great Bull Market made us feel rich, and we felt justified in saving less and borrowing - and spending - more.

After stocks collapsed, home prices took off, making us feel rich all over again. So we continued saving less and spending more, creating the illusion that our living standard was still rising. In 2005 our personal savings rate went negative, but even that didn’t slow us down, because our homes were still appreciating - and rising home values meant that household net worths weren’t declining.

Of course, we don’t hear those assurances anymore. Stocks are back where they were eight years ago, and home prices are where they were five years ago. But personal debt is much higher than ever before, and average pay is still going nowhere in real terms. So now how do we live as if our living standard is still rising?

That’s where the credit card reports come in. Last year, just as the subprime crisis happened, credit card debt took off. The home-equity ATM had been shut down, so people turned to the last source of easy money they had left, the most expensive debt on the menu, credit card borrowing.

Since credit card debt has been growing much faster than the economy - more than 8% in last year’s third and fourth quarters and over 7% in May (the most recent month reported)- people are apparently using it as a substitute for income. Thus, for the past year or so we have still maintained the standard-of-living illusion.

But a big crunch is coming - and here’s why. Credit card debt, like mortgage debt, gets bundled, securitized, and sold off by banks. Citigroup, one of America’s largest credit card lenders, just reported that it lost $176 million in the second quarter through securitizing such debt. That happens when the buyers of those securities observe rising delinquency rates and rising interest rates, and decide the debt is worth less than Citi thought. More generally, the amount of credit card debt that is securitized nationwide has plunged by more than half in the past five months because it’s getting riskier. That means credit card issuers will be charging customers higher interest rates, and since the banks can’t offload as much of the debt as before, they’ll have less money to lend to cardholders.

The squeeze has already started, which is why Congress is in the process of passing the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights, which would prevent issuers from changing rates and terms without warning, among many other provisions. But bottom line, the credit card money window is going to start closing - and soon.

So now what? It’s hard to see where consumers can turn next. Home prices seem highly unlikely to start rising again soon. Stocks? You never know, but the Great Bull Market looks like a once-in-a-lifetime event. Homes and stocks are households’ biggest asset classes by far. There isn’t much else to borrow against.

It may be that the standard-of-living bubble finally has to deflate. Sustainable increases in living standards have to be earned, not borrowed, and that means performing ever higher value work that can’t be outsourced. We haven’t been meeting that challenge very well; doing so will probably require much more and better education for millions of Americans, which takes time and money.

The result may feel like deprivation, but I don’t see it that way. Who knows - we might even find that living within our means and saving a little money actually isn’t so bad.

Sometimes aimlessly wandering around the internet actually yields something meaningful. I know…hard to believe.

I stumbled across GreenYour as a link from Harvard Business Online, and was immediately drawn into the endless pages of coolness.

The idea is really cool. The banner of the site is simple, it starts, ‘Green Your…’ followed by a text box. In the box is the phrase, ‘Type anything you want to green.’

Everything I searched for generated a solid list of articles and resources to help me green up.

For the beginner, there is a convenient icon menu that allows you to search by category. It is a good way to feel out what you will find in more personalized searches.

I’ll let the marketing speak give you the more formal explanation of what the site is all about:

While the gravity of the world’s environmental problems is increasingly obvious, we think it’s still far too hard to find clear information on how to take small – or large – steps towards solutions. To help, we’ve created an interactive resource with carefully researched facts, tips, and products that can help you green your life every day.

Leveraging open-source content development tools, we’ve built a platform on which writers and researchers can collaborate around specific issues and share their expertise. So far, we have developed more than 100 subject areas with more than 500 green tips. However, we know we have only scratched the surface. There are many more subjects to address, plenty of products and resources to add, and areas that require additional research and guidance.

This is where you come in. We are inviting individuals and organizations with deep environmental backgrounds to contribute their expertise. We also encourage anyone passionate about green living to share tips or products with us. So join us as we work together to expand this resource for a greener anything — and everything!

Bookmark the page, and stop making excuses that being green is too hard.

I’m just finishing an amazing book by David Wann called Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle. Mr. Wann is an avid organic gardener, and he sings the praises of growing your own food. I was totally on the program, but then the storms hit and challenged my resolve.

It just so happened, that today I read a chapter called The Currency of Nature. In it, he has a section called Ten Rules of Thumb for Those Seduced by Gardening in which he inspired me to replant.

“If at first you don’t succeed, keep planting. Wipe the slate clean by burying the evidence or hauling it to the compost pile.”

“Gardening is best practiced without shame, doubt, regret, envy, or dread. The only good garden is a no-guilt garden.”

“Harvest the intangibles. This may be the most important rule of all. It’s not just food we’re after, but knowledge, serenity, and a sense of purpose. Remember, what gardens fdo best is help gardeners grow.”

Inspired by this selection, Corey and I set out to replant. We tore out the ruined plants and tossed them in the compost bins. Then we grab the leftover seeds from earlier in the year and started the planting cycle all over again. We even took the opportunity to make some improvements. So in a way, the loss of the garden has some advantages. We got to innovate for an extra crop this year.

This book is an amazing source of knowledge and inspiration on all aspects of a sustainable lifestyle. I recommend that everyone interested in building a better future for yourself and our world read it.