I need less. You need less, we all need less.
Regardless of how much you are currently packing on your suitcase, trust me, you are overpacking.
Which brings us to your closet, and also to your home. Your office and all of the dark places within these rooms where you are hiding from the light, all of those things that you once thought were so important or that one day they would be useful.
Years have gone by, the word is in; they aren’t. You never built that project, you weren’t able to fix that coffee machine you loved so much. Quilting lessons never happened and most of the drawings from your University courses are rotten paper and dust at this point.
It is pointless to keep so many clothes if these constantly elude your regular rotation. It is pointless as well, to keep waiting for the perfect moment to drink that bottle of wine, eat that chocolate or to have that special pesto you bought at a family owned small shop on that one trip a couple of months ago.
There’s no logic in all these things that we do. It makes no sense whatsoever to keep postponing experiences in the midst of a “better moment to come”. Life is now!
And yes, life is busy too…
Instead of accumulating by default and holding on to whatever we can — we need to be super critical and have ugly conversations with ourselves about our habits, priorities and belief systems. Minimizing, most of the times equals optimization. If — you and me — we’ve had a real talk for more than an hour I guarantee you’ve heard me mention John Maeda’s book “Laws of Simplicity“ — I quote it way too many times.
One of the best lines in his book is “if you are going to have less things, they have to be amazing things”. Now — often times when I mention this, people tend to interpret it as a call for “minimalism”, a trendy way to own less things. And, yes… It can be that, but to me it is much more important what remains with you than what you end up getting rid of.
See, in life we need less in order to be able to focus on quality, instead of diluting ourselves on more “things” that end up barely working.
I often think about this matter in terms of restaurant menus. I despise places that have 4 pages foldable menus printed front and back, and offer you anything and everything from a steak salad to hummus with totopos and a peruvian ceviche sushi roll. It’s impossible to deliver quality in all of these items and a great customer / personal experience.
One night in New York City I went to a restaurant near Penn Station that had their menu printed on an A4 paper sheet, 2 entrees, 4 main platters, 4 sides to choose from, 3 beers, 3 liqueurs and 3 desserts. When I asked the waiter about the simplicity of the menu, she just replied; “our chef really knows his stuff”.
I have to say; that night’s brussels sprouts along with the amber ale I had live rent free in my memory.
Where do I want to get with all this?
Simplicity and stressing on reduction for optimization are greats ways to not only find your path towards greatness, but also to achieve it. Less distraction equals a massive increase in wealth of resources to invest in whatever matters the most to you in life.
Narrowing down your relationships to the essential ones, not only will take through a great inner journey but will end up giving you more time and energy to generate stronger bonds with those remaining.
I often use my suitcase as an analogy.
The first jobs I had as a producer moving around from city to city — I was carrying a whole lot of clothes, shoes, training shoes, running shoes, dinning shirt, uniforms, this and that, what not and a bag of chips, almost leaving no room for my kid’s gifts.
As I started questioning, optimizing and really analyzing towards the essence of my needs and the function of “packing a bag” I realized I had been greedy and very immature about it. Then I measured, systemized and optimized my bag.
This week I came back from a 7 week journey, done with a small carry-on and a backpack. This means, no lines, no waiting for a bag, no check-ins, no hassle, no drama, and a whole lot of peace and time to enjoy the crappy pool at the hotel.
Less is the key.
This post has extended a bit much already, and it’s missing it’s own point. I don’t wanna take more of your valuable time, thanks for investing it on these lines and hope they have some impact on your life. Get rid of what gets heavy and embrace the now.
The Cloud Gate or “Bean” in Chicago has always been a personal reference of the simplicity and complexity symbiosis in life