Simplifying Your Life

In roughly twenty hours, I’ll be making a move for the third time. That does not sound like a lot, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s not. Many people move far more often than I do. I have had the luxury of living in a very steady situation, and even when turbulence did hit, it was mild. So, what kind of advice do I have to offer concerning moving, with so little experience under my belt? Not much, really. Only one thing that is important: Simplifying.

I have spent the last several days browsing websites like ApartmentTherapy.com and Houzz.com. Both of them are interior design websites, where I was looking for inspiration on how to live simple and small, but still maintain a home feel. While contrasting what I see in the photos, and what I see in my own place, the only glaring difference is my stuff. I have way too much of it.

Granted, during my last move, I had to move back into my folks home, who had staged the room for guests. We consolidated as much as we could into the room, and a cluttered feeling is the result, but I flat out have just too much stuff.

I took this observation to heart, even desiring brand new furniture to lower the entire footprint of my things, throwing away and donating a large portion of the things I decided I no longer needed.

The interesting outcome of this situation is the immense feeling of relief. Not just relief in that I will have less things to move, although that is fantastic, but internal relief of less distraction.

President Obama has been said to only have blue, gray, or black suits in his closet. Not because he doesn’t appreciate style, or have an adventurous personality, but because those types of decisions are too insignificant for the President to worry about. This has resonated with myself, and simplifying my own possessions to reach this sort of goal–where I no longer have to think about routine, mundane decisions too intensely–is a desire of mine. Here are a few steps I have taken to reach it.

Too many choices often lead to no choice being made. Although it is a basic human desire to increase our options, I have found that decreasing them to only important options is far more rewarding.

I implore you take some time and think of ways you can simplify your life. Eliminate some of your possessions by gifting or donating them to others, reduce your visual stimuli to a more manageable level, and live a simpler life with more focus on people and less on things. It’s an ever rewarding experience.

Perception VS Reality — Attitude

Attitude changes. I’m not entirely sure they’re possible. There are modifications, and perceptions that you can push to the outside world, but will it ever be changed?

This could be my youth showing through loud and clear, so please, comment if you feel as such, but I just don’t see it.

I just finished a One on One assessment, done monthly by my company. The meeting, as it’s described, is a discussion between just you and your supervisor. You cover things like, what you’re working on right now, where you’re at with any developmental things covered before, and a general assessment of your performance the past month. We are rated on a scale straight from kindergarten:

• Green means you’ve exceeded expectations, or have done better than a baseline
• Yellow is the baseline. You’re neither doing bad nor great at this category
• Red is needs improvement.

I was rated Green and Yellow on all categories, but only by a hair in one in particular: “Values”. He explained that he can hear a bit of attitude in my voice some days. I’ve also come off as “cocky” in responses to my co-workers.

I don’t disagree with this assessment. I even intended for these things to happen (not that it’s a good thing). This was an isolated incident, and I slipped up, that happened to occur in a very short timespan before my review. 

Some ways I have found to combat this issue within myself, and hopefully some things you can use in your journey after the jump.