Some decisions are important and demand a lot of options. Picture these scenarios:
-a young couple with a new baby deciding where to live
-a college bound teen choosing a school to spend the next 4 years
-a retired couple figuring out what's next
No matter what stage we are in life, we all face lots of important decisions everyday:
-what should I drive, or could I bike or walk more?
-should I buy organic? could I eat less meat and more vegetables?
-I'm not happy in my job, should I look for a new one?
-could i make time for artistic creativity in my life, or a workout routine?
These are things that deserve our time, but often they don't get our full attention, or even a small part of it. I believe one reason is that our brains our too tired to make the hard decisions because we spend so much time sifting through options and making other decisions. Decisions about:
-what to buy next, from the endless list of options as seen on advertisements
-what to wear everyday (from an overflowing closet)
-where to put things in the house that don't seem to have a place
-what to cook for dinner
When we declutter our lives of the things we don't regularly use or love, one of the amazing effects is that we find ourselves needing to make fewer decisions everyday. Everything in your home will have a place, thus cleaning up requires little thought, only action. As you declutter your pantry, you will be left with the food that you actually like to cook (and you will waste far less food in the process, as well as save money from buying more food that you didn't actually need). A minimalist wardrobe will leave you with only the clothes that you really enjoy wearing. My favorite part of working with my clients on decluttering: they quickly realize that buying more stuff is rarely the answer to anything. So they stop. Opting out of a consumer culture that does it's best to get us to buy more is one of the most freeing things I have ever experienced. It literally removes hundreds of decisions from your life each week, because you are simply tuning out marketing messages.
As your brain starts to enjoy freedom from tedious decisions, you'll notice space up there to spend time on issues you want to explore, but previously lacked the capacity for. Perhaps a fulfilling hobby is just around the corner. Maybe you want to explore healthier eating, or become an advocate on an important issue. Is there a new friendship waiting for you, just over the horizon? That part is not for me to say; only you know the desires of your heart. My role is to help others declutter. And of course, decluttering is about removing the things that don't serve us, in order to make room for a life that DOES fill us with joy :)
If you like what you've read, pass this on, or write me back.
Warmly,
Brooke