No, I don't mean don't think deep thoughts, but rather be selective about what you give your attention to as well as the necessity of having a clear vision of what a simple life means to you.
Decluttering my magazine collection has given me a very important realization. It is that to live a minimalist life externally, we need to live a minimalist life internally as well.
Being an ardent bibliophile, who hates to throw away anything with words, save for superficial magazines, it was quite a feat to sort through about 70 magazines. I have canceled many of my magazine publications that I am not really interested in, but I was still left with the problem of a large, accumulated pile. Since there are so many magazines that have accumulated, that also used so many trees and because I like to read, I felt compelled to read all the articles. Yet this is quite impossible, and not useful as I have tons of books that I would also like to read that would actually add value to my life. So, I made a decision to not start reading any articles that did not jive with my interests.
This was difficult for me because I feel that we always need to keep our interests wide to have a well rounded life. I have realized that many interests may not be always a good thing though because there is such a thing as too many interests. I liken it to learning a language – if we try to learn too many languages at once, we will never get good at any of them. So I had to really think about the things that inspire me or push me forward, that I am totally engrossed in, and these are my passions and true interests. For me, I realize that my interests are: minimalist/green living, literature, biographies on writers and sages, spirituality, natural food (though I do eat seafood), archeology, psychology, and of course, improving myself internally and in my job.
Compiling my interest list made me realize that as much as I have geared over to a simpler life, I failed to streamline my internal life (thoughts, interests), which is absolutely essential to live a minimalist life because it becomes your locus of control. As I look back, I realize that having this locus of control keeps me from accumulating unnecessary things, such as clothing, since although I like to look nice, trends are not in my core interest. Isolating your core interests can help you to live a minimalist/simple because when you declutter and minimize your possessions, you can make the decisions to keep things that only pertain to your interests and that add value to your life.
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