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Yes, at one point in my life I was Super Woman; I served on the boards of three nonprofit organizations. I worked full-time. I founded & managed three nonprofit organizations of my own. I was very active in my church & served on several church committees. I did all this while providing my husband & six fur babies (two dogs & four cats) with loving care & maintaining close friendships with women through phone contact & lunches. My husband was a semi-invalid, so I had to do all the shopping, food preparation, laundry & bill paying. I also have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), so that makes time & task management more challenging for me than a majority of people.
The benefits of making simplicity a goal & way of life are many. They include: peace of mind, spiritual growth,& renewal, stress reduction, higher self-esteem, better health, deeper sleep, & saving money.
Here are four ways to make room for simplicity in
your life:
1. Establish Your Priorities
When your husband, lover, child or parent has to be hospitalized for a sudden, life-threatening heath problem, your priorities can suddenly become very clear. Typically, they will include your closest loved ones & your income-generating activities that are necessary for your ongoing household maintenance. My priority list is short & sweet: Maintaining & deepening my relationship with God; taking care of my family; taking care of me; wisely managing my financial resources.
2 Learn to Say No
Any commitment that reduces your ability to maintain your priorities needs to be ended. Many of the responsibilities we accept are I what I call “schedule clutter.” They waste your precious & limited time while draining away energy that would be better devoted to spending quality time with your loved ones, personal & spiritual development (exercise, meditation, prayer, reading), creative self-expression or personal hobbies. When looking at your commitments, ask yourself if this activity truly nourishes you or strongly supports your priorities.
3. Can the Clutter
Simplicity is not something you add to your life so much as something that you discover & savor when you strip your life down to its most nourishing & important elements. That stripping down process should include every kind of clutter in your life: schedule, mental, social & of the course the material clutter created by your stuff.
“Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, Have few desires.”
– Lao Tzu
Most of us will never want or achieve the extreme simplicity of the lives of Buddhist & Christian monks, yet they offer inspiring examples of living a serene, reflective lives that require very few material possessions & that foster the perception that every aspect of life is sacred, whether that’s praying, washing dishes, or chanting.
I love books, magazines & music, so it’s not realistic to expect me to keep those down to a bare minimum, but I have reduced my library from 2,500 volumes to about 350. I’m not a big clothes horse or fashionista, however, so I find it easy to shop at thrift stores & to purge my wardrobe regularly. After all, if I only spent three dollars on a blouse or pair of shoes, it’s not a big deal to release & return it to the same charitable organization I bought it from.
When it comes to clutter-busting, identify the belongings that bring you the greatest joy & nourishment then aggressively purge all the rest. If you haven’t used something for six months or a year or two, it’s almost certain it’s something you can live without.
4.Find Joy in the Journey
Be wary of having too many items on your to-do list & too many goals you are focused on. Our American culture emphasizes achievement as one of the highest goods in our lives; the more achievements the better. Doing, doing, doing, going, going, going & hurry, hurry, hurry is the perfect recipe for extreme stress. You can even get addicted to the adrenalin rushes that come with the territory of extreme going, doing & hurrying. You need respite, refreshment, renewal, time to smell the roses, giggle & gossip with friends. This will benefit your mental & physical health while enhancing the quality of all of your personal relationships.
Simplicity-
Soothe your Soul While
Slashing Your Stress
Cynthia Kiteley Lee is the founder and CEO of the Christian Home Business Association and savors the joys of a simple, frugal life in rural Mississippi. You can contact her at:
Simplicity is one of those uplifting concepts like inner serenity or an organized, clutter-free home that many of us yearn to experience but don’t feel we have the time or energy to pursue. As a recovering Queen of Complexity, I have achieved a life of simplicity --- a philosophy of simplicity—through the time-honored path of massive stress, trauma, trial & error. I hope that my suggestions in this article will help you embrace simplicity more quickly & easily than I did.
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
-- Henry David Thoreau