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| Photo courtesy Jennifer Pallian |
Sometimes this world is too much for me. Too many
activities. Too much noise. Too many expectations. Too much stuff in my house.
Too much stuff in my head. More than once I’ve written about my attempts to
banish busy or do less, and yet I still wind up searching for ways to make life
more manageable and thus happier. My newest discovery is the principle of
“less, but better.”
The phrase less, but better comes from the design
philosophy of industrial designer Dieter Rams, but it’s easy to see how we can
apply it to our overcrowded lives.
Less
Less seems pretty self-explanatory. Do less, have less,
embrace enough and avoid excess. Of course, excess looks different to
every person. What is excess to me could be just right for you. I hate being
rushed and I get anxious when stretched too thin. To maintain my personal happy
balance, I need to commit to doing fewer things, whether that means trimming my to-do list, or saying
no to activities I’d like to do but that will put me over the border into
Crazytown.
No matter what our personal less/excess level is, we need to be clear in our own minds about what we
truly want and need. Less, but better is the way of mindfulness, intention,
slowing down to think rather than diving in heedlessly. It’s the way of
becoming more thoughtful with time and energy.
Instead of throwing a ton of stuff (activities, food,
clothes, possessions) at yourself, ask, what do I need? What do I long
for? Would one gourmet dark chocolate sea salt caramel be more
satisfying than five grocery store candy bars? The answer is almost always yes.
Better
Getting rid of excess, or not buying into it (or buying it)
in the first place, is just the start. Once the excess is pared away, we’ll
have time and space, and probably money, to go deeper, to enjoy better.
Since deeper is my word of the year, I really appreciate this. When a new
something-or-other catches my attention, I remind myself that this is the year
I want to go deeper into the things that I love and that I’ve already committed
to such as my writing, my horse, and sketching. Instead of reading more books
this year, I want to read better books, and absorb more of what I read. I’d
rather put my heart into a few things than spatter my attention across a
multitude.
I don’t say this is easy. I still find it remarkably hard not to
run after the first shiny object that attracts my eye. But I am getting much
better at choosing that single dark chocolate sea salt caramel.
What is one area in your life where you can experiment with
the principle of less, but better?
