Minimalism

In my quest for peace, it has become abundantly clear that when striving for more...

more money....more status...more possessions...comes more stress.

Even when striving for more of things that appear beneficial...

more education...more friends...more professional experiences...stress can increase.

Now a lack of any of the above can be stressful as well, so I'm guessing the key is to find the right balance.  I am sure that this balance is different for each of us, and so I am currently trying to find the right area for me to cut back first.  I am in the process of reading several books on minimalism.  While many of them focus on reducing clutter in regard to physical possessions, a number of them look at ways of reducing mental clutter as well. 

One of the first books I read this year was An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus' Rhythms of Work and Rest by Alan Fadling.   To this point I have only seen my ability to accomplish tasks quickly and efficiently as a strength.  However as Fadling points out:  "In my preoccupation with efficiency, I miss much that God wants to do in my life and say to me in the moment. Hurry rushes toward the destination and fails to enjoy the journey.".  While it has felt SUPER strange to actively minimize my tasks in both quantity and pace, I have already experienced some peace from this shift in thinking.

Another great read this month has been Soulful Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More by Courtney Carver.  Carver discussed both minimizing physical possessions and reducing busyness.  While I feel like I was a beast in reducing clutter up in this joint over the last year, she even discussed reducing two areas I guess I previously felt were off limits:  clothes that still fit/are wearable and sentimental items.  

The first I jumped on right away.  She talked about reducing your closet down to 33 items-uh, yeah, that was a hard no, BUT I was able to pare my wardrobe down to things I really did enjoy wearing AND could fit all four seasons of clothing into my side of the closet.  Previously I had fall/winter and spring/summer wardrobes that were rotated with the off season stuff in a trunk and plastic bins.  Some of these articles of clothing I bought my first and second year of teaching!  While I had technically worn all of it over the course of the last few years there were A LOT of items that I felt I could honestly say I had gotten every penny out of them!  Three garbage bags of clothes found their way to Goodwill and one found its final resting place in the trash (jeans with frayed bottoms, shirts with stains or small holes you could only see if you were looking for them, etc.).  It felt super freeing!  The sentimental items I'm still not sure about.  I have three large plastic tubs in the attic that contain ticket stubs, programs, cards, etc. that go all the way back to elementary school.  I'm not quite sure how I feel about actively trying to delete these items from my life (which may also inadvertently delete any accompanying memories:( but it is something I may consider...maybe this summer?  Yeah, let's say that.  This summer:).

Reducing busyness has been a little tricker as, just with thoughts being something I thought were a non-negotiable in my life, always feeling like I should be DOING something has been tough instinct to extinguish.  Currently I am making some progress in things like not (constantly) trying to do something on my phone, but I'm thinking this will be a tougher nut to crack than some of the others.