Simplify and Eliminate

For some people it is summertime, and the living is easy. I remember in my elementary school years the feelings I had on the last day of school. I also remember that on the last day of school a lot of girls in my class would be crying. I think all the boys were looking at each other wondering if we were missing something. We were officially free. We could play all day, everyday. We didn’t have homework or assignments. We didn’t have a certain time to go to bed or a certain time to wake up. We could spend time doing the things we loved to do. We could discover new sports, new games and new activities. We had space. Things just got a lot easier.

Then we grew up. It was now time to get serious. It was time to stop playing and start working. Our vacations went from months to weeks. Our responsibilities grew in numbers. It was time to grow up. It was time to learn to think a certain way. It was time to start accumulating stuff. It was time to get bigger, better and more stuff. We may have to work a little harder to afford the stuff, but surely the stuff will make us feel fulfilled.

The problem is that there is not as much time and space to enjoy life. We have successfully created complicated and full lives.

For the past 25 years we have been supporting people in the process of simplifying and eliminating.

Time is our most valuable resource and a lot of us have built lives where we don’t feel we have enough time to do the things we truly value doing. When we were children, life seemed a lot simpler. Now as adults we all have the chance to simplify the life we are living.

If you are looking for more time, more fun, more passion in life and more space, it might be time to eliminate.

Before I give you some thoughts about all the things you can eliminate, I want to warn you that you might experience some resistance. You have been accumulating for a long time, and you have given a lot of value and meaning to the things you have been accumulating and part of you is going to put up a fight. If you are successful, you will find that any pain you experience in eliminating things will be greatly outweighed by the benefits you will experience.

The obvious place to start might be with physical things. If you look in your bedroom closet and it is quite full, you might find articles of clothing that you haven’t worn in years. Your filing cabinet could be full of files that you will never look at again. Your house might have a lot of toys, trinkets, or things that you never use or never look at. Your desk might be covered with paper.

The truth is that when you eliminate the clutter, the disorder and the stuff it can give you energy, possibility and peace.

If you look at your finances, you might be able to eliminate things that you are paying for that you don’t use anymore. You can eliminate debt. You can sell things you don’t use to help pay for things you want to use.

You can eliminate habits that aren’t serving you. This can make some space for habits that do serve you.

You can eliminate some beliefs that are no longer serving you. Many of the beliefs you are holding onto and have shaped your life might be beliefs that you learned to believe when you were three, or seven or seventeen. Just because you believed them then doesn’t mean they are still true at this stage of life. It is not a matter of them being right or wrong, the question is “Are they still serving you?” It is unlikely that you still dress the way you did at three, seven, or seventeen and yet you might still be holding on to some beliefs that don’t make sense anymore or have gone out of style.

Maybe it is time to eliminate some of your thinking. In his book “Don’t Believe Everything You Think” Joseph Nguyen tells a story of a scholar who approaches a Zen Master to learn about Zen. As the master is trying to teach the scholar, the scholar constantly interrupts with his own knowledge of Zen and his stories about it. The Zen Master suggests they have tea. When the tea is ready, he starts to pour tea for the scholar and continues to pour it even after the cup is full. The scholar tells the master to stop.

“Can’t you see that it is full?”

“Exactly” says the master. “You are like this cup. So full of ideas that nothing else will fit in. Come back when you have an empty cup.”

Sometimes our minds are like full filing cabinets with little room for more thoughts. The cabinet is jammed full it takes longer to find what we are looking for. We might call it memory loss, but it could be a crammed cabinet.

There may be some people we may need to eliminate from our lives. People change and the effect that certain people may have on us can change. Are the people we have in our lives making us better or impacting us negatively. Sometimes it may not be eliminating them but spending less time with them. It might even mean deciding to eliminate the meaning you give to them or the power you are giving them to impact your life.

You have the choice to see how simplifying and eliminating can impact your life. It is my hope that you will eliminate some things and find that you are energized. It is my hope that you are more productive and engaged. It is my hope that you feel more peace and less stress.

The world deserves the best of you! And so do you!