What would it be like to lead a low-energy lifestyle?

What would it be like to lead a low-energy lifestyle? Are people already successfully using less energy while maintaining a high quality of life? What are some of the challenges in convincing more people to embrace a low-energy lifestyle?

I remember that my mother used to wash the clothes with a non-automatic washing machine in which she also had to do some physical work. In the same way, my father used to go to his office via a bus. We did not have a lot of electronics in our house that would consume energy. Everything has changed, washing machine, headers, coolers, almost everything has become automatic consuming a lot of energy. We have two cars at our home consuming a lot of fuel. What I mean from the above discussion is that we have become addicted to automation and electronics. It would be healthy to go back a bit to the old days but I do not see it happening because of the worsening addiction to technology