Live a Small Life

This book got me started on this goal, and I misplaced it for a while. I found it yesterday (yay!) under a pile of magazines that I’m going through tonight when I get home. It’s a big pile, heavy, and I’ll rip out what I want and recycle the rest. And don’t worry, there are more magazine piles to go through. This was the most obvious group of mags to peruse and declutter. I think a small life is possible.

It means living exactly how I want to live with exactly what I want in my life. I’m close, but still have too many distractions and sidebars going on. It’s taken me some time to figure out what I DON’T WANT in my life. I finally know what I do want. I had to experiment a lot to get to this point. Life ain’t no dress rehearsal.

about how I used to feel, with going to the mall shopping with no particular item in mind, or running up credit cards to buy things that were nice, but certainly not worth getting in debt for. I thought about how my financial life had expanded to include so many debts in so many different genres of debt, and how my debt has gotten smaller and smaller until now I feel truly odd to have only 2 handfuls of bills to pay each month. It is a great accomplishment for me. I guess I am patting myself on the back, while also feeling humble and contrite for all the debt I ran up and then paid down. It’s hard to explain, because I don’t feel as if I am punishing myself, but that I am accepting my financial place without the need to overreach what I can afford. I can afford a lot, but to get what I can afford, I must save up for it. This is a new aspect of a Small Life for me, and it feels good, and scary, and in control, and out of control.

is that I will only do what I want to do, or what I have to do to get to where I want to be or to do what I want to do. So I still have to go to work every day. Part of my Small Life is fitting all the pieces together into an integrated, cohesive whole. I no longer want to “be out there”, but I do want to be holding close to my authentic self and authentic lifestyle. I am getting there! At long last I am able to see what it is I must do and be to have my Small Life, so small it will fit inside my heart.

I realized today that my partner, my sig other is high maintenance. I am not. I’m going to quit subsidizing his high maintenance, as I have for the past 10 years. He won’t like it, but I simply can’t afford otherwise. I’m curious to see how this plays out.

As I’m getting closer to a simpler and less indebted financial life, I am seeing how it really will make my life a Small Life. I won’t be spread out in breadth and depth with owing money to everyone. I’ll of course owe money, but maybe I can even save enough over time so I’m not having to go into debt merely to live. I know a lot of people are having a really hard time and I am grateful for my job, my low mortgage payment, my health insurance, occasional help from my family, my good health, my simple tastes and low maintenance personality. I am grateful for what I have, and willing to have less in some areas so that others may live better lives.

My financial life is getting smaller in obligations and bigger in what is best for me! My money or my life! I choose life!

With the cost of gas, my life has become smaller. I am choosing to spend entire weekends at home without driving anywhere. My life has become smaller, but at the same time, I have time to work on my house and horses and land, so it has expanded in those areas.

My life is too big for me. I have too many responsibilities, to many bills, too many animals, too many family distractions, and my partner is too high maintenance for me. So my focus is to rightsize my life to the small life that I am able to live. As I’ve gotten older, I find that certain activities are less of interest to me, and others more so. A small life will help me to pursue what I really like, as well as improve finances, health, quality of life, and relationships. Living a small life also means allowing others to take care of their own responsibilities instead of me stepping forward to “help” them. I have a dear friend who is so nice, but sometimes way too “helpful” (not controlling, but sometimes she is in the way with being too helpful) and she is mirroring my own behavior at times. I am praying for a small life, and asking for guidance in the right directions.

This a.m. I was reading about this connection and thinking that a Small Life would include less stuff and less weight. A Small Life would mean not consuming on automatic, food and possessions. I have been working diligently at my job to declutter my area and clean up my space so that 2011 starts clean and organized. I am surprised at how much I’ve gotten accomplished, and also how easy it is to find things now. On the other hand, it is a constant effort because of everything that crosses my desk. Eating at work still challenges me because I am a candy addict. Cold turkey is my only hope and it’s Christmas. If I only eat homemade, then a lot of stuff doesn’t cut it. Who am I kidding? Only myself because I will eat what isn’t homemade. I thought about this a lot last night. I don’t like the way drinking makes me feel, although I do enjoy the flavor of a Pinot Griegio or Petit Syrrah. Therein lies the problem. I like the flavor of certain candy, but not what it does to my weight, my teeth, my cholesterol, and my self-esteem. So this Small Life is about choices again, as so much of self-improvement is, and conscious living in one area informs other areas as well. Making lifestyle changes in what I bring and keep in my life also means what I put into my mouth. Clutter is often considered as postponed choices, so can eating candy (and other unhealthy foods) even when I know better mean that I am postponing the choice to change this behavior? I think so. And I carry this mental and psychological clutter, this knowledge of changing behavior and not changing it, with me and I’m not able to grow beyond this point.