National Simplicity Day was founded in honor of Henry David Thoreau, an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher who was born this date in 1817. An advocate of abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs, his writings influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.
In the complicated world that we inhabit today where mobile phones, laptops and other modern day gadgets mean that we very rarely experience true peace and quiet to gather our thoughts, Simplicity Day celebrates the ideas of Thoreau. What better excuse to leave the technology at home and experience the feeling of truly being in the moment.