I think it’s safe to say that practically all of us have had some kind of wake-up call since the pandemic hit. Maybe it was realizing who really matters in your life, or that you shouldn’t take life for granted.
For me, it was both of those things and the fact that many of the things that I thought were necessary to live my life were in fact not.
A few months ago, I hired a friend who does home improvements to do some work in my kitchen. He had to remove the cupboards and expose all the stuff I have packed in there, and boy was it a lot. He said “You have a lot of stuff for a single person”, and I just nodded silently while trying to hide my cringe.
A few weeks prior to this, while going through my personal branding upgrade with Sandy Grigsby, I had removed all the unnecessary clothes from my cupboard which didn’t just create space, it also made me so much happier because my mind felt less cluttered. When I looked at my kitchen cupboards I realized I needed to do the same with all that stuff, too.
While I love to entertain, my overall circle of friends has shrunk so much in the past 2 years that there is a grand total of only 4 people, including my parents, that I would actually need stuff for.
What we all need to ask ourselves is why we really need the things we’re holding onto in our lives. If you own a car, are you really paying that amount of money for it to just sit in your garage while you work from home? Can you use public transport or Uber instead? If you could get rid of it, how much more could you be investing or putting towards your retirement?
How many pairs of shoes do you own and how many do you actually wear regularly? Those 15, 20, or more pairs that are just sitting there — what use are they? Or are you just keeping them to show off that you have a “hobby of collecting shoes”? You’re not fooling anyone but your broke-ass self. Don’t just look at shoes, look at all the other stuff you have in your house that you have an excessive amount of.
Lastly, your location. Do you really need to stay where you are? Not all of us can move, I get it, but we need to look into whether the lifestyles we’re living are really making us happy. If your job allows you to work remotely, what’s stopping you from relocating, even if it’s temporary? After all, all we need is the internet, right? Whether it’s to another city or even country, where will you truly feel happy without really having anything to complain about?
There are ways to change whatever situation you’re in. Start small and get rid of clutter. The world isn’t about physical things, it’s about energy. When you get rid of unnecessary physical things, you clear the way for good energy, and that will allow you to connect with the things that really matter. It’s the only way you can truly start to transcend into a better human being.
Small changes over a period of time make a massive difference.
“It’s not big choices, but ones that you think don’t matter or count for much that derail us. You don’t consciously think about it, but these small decisions can really change things.” — The Compound Effect.
It’s time to return to innocence.