Slow Living Tips That Simplified My Life (Minimalism)

Let's face it, life is becoming even more chaotic. In the past couple years alone, we have experienced political, financial, and global chaos that we never thought possible. In a time desperate for hope, we are instead flooded with over 10,000 ads a day telling us a life of consumption will fix all of our problems, leaving many of us feeling disconnected, anxious, and desperately searching for moments of simplicity. And having lived a slow and minimalist lifestyle for years now, these are the principles that I have followed that have allowed me to be able to take control of my life and find clarity in the chaos. You are enough. The probability of you being born is about 1 out of 400 trillion, showing that nothing else in this world is worth more than just the gift you provide to life. And yet for many of us, we spend our entire lives in a never-ending pursuit, accumulating different things as a way to define our worth. One of the key principles in minimalism is the removal of excess items to prioritize what truly matters in your life. It allows the discovery of just what is enough. However, we rarely remove the false beliefs in our own mind to be able to prioritize our own gifts and our own self-worth. A new car, new brand clothes, and a fancy house will not provide a true sense of worth. And in reality, none of this will happen until you remove the illusion that something outside of yourself can provide you worth. You are the only one that has the power to do that. So do me a favor, every night for about a month, write down, I am worth everything I could ever wish for. I love you, and I am proud no matter what. And do this for me right now, and I don't care what it is that you are doing. Say out loud, I am enough. And see the difference in how you feel. One of the greatest lessons I've ever learned is the difference between saying, I can, and I will. As a society, we hate to say no. We fear hurting someone else's feelings, the potential conflict it might cause, and the guilt that will arise turning someone down. So we often say yes, or I can. In reality, this is not only doing you a disservice, but also the person you were trying to please as you were being inauthentic. If I say, yes, I can hang out with a friend, but I am stressed the whole time I am there because I need to do something else, they will not enjoy that moment either. When we say, yes, I can, we are describing that I physically am able to do so, but not in an intentional way. Saying, yes, I will, is putting intention behind the action that we are doing. It shows that I have the ability and desire to do something. Hell yes. When we are not willing to do something, there are plenty of ways to politely say no. I prefer just being completely honest. Solve your solvable problems. John Gottman, an American psychologist, states that most conflicts in relationships are prioritized by the perpetual problem. The one based off of personality differences. And they rarely work on these small, solvable problems that can compound into actually making a difference in a relationship. In the minimalist lifestyle, everyone goes through what's called a decluttering phase. And when you are decluttering, you don't focus on cleaning your entire house all at once. Because oftentimes, that feels very overwhelming. What you do is you focus on one small task that allows you to be able to take that victory and to be able to compound small little things that you can control into all of a sudden, your entire house is clean. And I believe that the fundamental principle of this allows us to segue into ultimately why in life, it feels like it is so out of reach. We are always in pursuit of something unachievable. In social media, we have the fear of missing out on something new. If we don't scroll long enough, we may miss the next exciting thing everyone will talk about. We consume hours and hours of news and fear that if we don't hear the next dire piece of information, we will be in danger. If I don't invest my money right now into the best stock, I will miss out on becoming rich. And in reality, these are all things entirely out of our control. What we need to do is focus on the small moments in our life that allow us to feel excitement. We need to listen to our tight-knit community and see what it is that we can actually do to make a change. We need to see what are those small little flaws in our budget that are not allowing us to get to where it is that we want financially. We need to look at the small habits that allow compounding movements into making a big change. Complexity bias. The complexity bias is a logical fallacy that when faced with two different hypotheses, we're going to choose the more complex one, even if there is a very simple solution. Humans have a tendency to look at a simple problem and come to the conclusion that there must be other forms of complex solutions to it. This is like Anakin, instead of processing his fears, deciding to eliminate all the Jedi and yes, even the younglings. And because it's my goal to always throw in a Star Wars reference, here is one that actually might make more sense. It would be like going to the doctor and having your blood work taken or always looking at new vitamins because you're tired. When in reality, it's because each evening you're staying up until 3am, going to partying and drinking and doing things like that, that aren't supporting a healthy sleep environment. Oftentimes during the most stressful and chaotic parts of my life, I decide to go outside for a walk. And that is when I realized just how simple life truly is. We spend so much time focusing on the construct of society in which we created as if it's the only point to be alive. We live to work, work to consume, consume to drown out our own life and chaos hides itself as complexity. And we always choose to pursue the complexity. And the most beautiful thing about minimalism, slow living, intentional living, essentialism, whatever lifestyle it is that you choose to pursue, is that you were in control in how you simplify your life. But the absolute most beautiful thing is that right outside your very door or right outside your window is nature. The true example of what life is all about. And that is to live. And of course, we have to participate in society in some way. But being able to simplify your life in a way that you are living with intention allows you to be able to go through the constructs of society and actually be able to use it to the benefit that it has to offer instead of living the life for the society. And ultimately, what I wanted to highlight is while we do have an amazing plethora of different lifestyles you can live to be able to pursue a simple lifestyle, ultimately, it all goes back to you needing to reflect within yourself that you are worth a simple lifestyle. Because as the simplicity happens within yourself, the perspective of life is what's going to change. That's how you're going to be able to see that life in itself is simple and beautiful. So I just want to thank you for taking your precious time out of your day to be able to watch this video and what it is that I have to say. I hope that it was able to provide some sort of value. And remember, no matter what, you are worth everything that you can ever wish for. Thank you so much. Hell yes.