curate2
To select, organize, and look after the items in (a collection or exhibition).
When I realised that I had to get real and get myself and my life together it sparked a whole lot of thinking. As far as I could see, the problem was that I was all over the place in every aspect of my life. The problem was that nothing was broken so I didn’t look at anything too closely. Bank account? Noooooo, I didn’t want to check that – I knew that my latest trip to Karen Walker made me want to avoid that baby for a while. Sort out what I had on that week? I was pretty sure I had double booked myself multiple days, so I was going to ignore that until it was almost on top of me. You get the picture, and that was just scratching the surface!
An idea that kept niggling at the corner of my mind was why I had so much cr@p in my life. From over committing, to bills that I had ignored. Overflowing cupboards and drawers to drifting in jobs. Don’t get me wrong, there were great things buried deep, down in the depths but all the amazing was being over crowded by the not so amazing. What I wanted was less but better.
I wanted less of the clutter and drama so I could focus on all of the amazing things that were going on. This idea of consciously selecting and curating the things that I was most passionate about started to grow. To select the best items, to organise and look after them – it occurred to me that this could absolutely work in our daily lives. This includes our time and energy and love, surely our most precious things.
One of my strongest beliefs is that the reason so many of us struggle with the lives that we are living is down to us living over complicated lives that often have us feeling trapped and unhappy. But what if we were to take a more simplistic, minimalist look at our lives and strip away all the superfluous and focus our time and energy on the most important, essential things.
So what is this curated, simple living? Well my friends, it is cleansing, detoxing, restructue and decluttering. Decluttering our physical spaces, our minds and looking at our values, habits and goals – and then simplifying these in the same way that we would a bookshelf or wardrobe, let’s break it down a little more…
Why Simplify?
To be practical, this is where you need to start. First up, how do you feel about your life? What makes you anxious, frustrated or trapped. Where do you want to be? Are you on track to get there? What are your values, goals and motivations? Starting here is a great start to a figuring out what you want.
Priorities
Part of my problem was consuming. Society doesn’t have a problem with this and we are sold to and at on a disturbing frequency. Objects have a high priority in our lives and other people are often who we look to to judge value, whether that be the way we look, where we live, where we work and ultimately the value that we assign to ourselves. We can trap ourselves in houses that are too expensive, jobs that we don’t love (because we need that pay check!) all this uses a lot of your time, energy and money and can have an end result where we are searching for happiness but resign ourselves that it will always be out of reach.
This is where the concept of a curated, simple life – a conscious life comes in. If you feel that you are spending all your money on material things, getting a bigger and better house, racking up debts then why not look at stripping things back. Start by the big detox. Get rid of things that clutter your space. Then, lets look at what is cluttering your mind and after this big detox comes the fun stuff! Resetting, working out your values, dreams and goals. You now have free time, energy and money that you can redirect to things that really matter to you. Whether that is spending times with those that you love, learning new skills or hobbies and engaging in the pursuit or happiness.
In a Nutshell
Here is, in my opinion, the foundations of simple living:
- Detoxing and decluttering. This is in all aspects of your life, physical and mental. Making sure that you get rid of the negative to them be able to surround yourself with positive things and people that allow you to think, breath and dream.
- Removing unnecessary overcommitment . Not placing yourself in situations that make you unhappy because you know what and who you value. You make your decisions based on your passions and values and you have freed your time, mind and energy to do so.
- You know your life priorities. You ask questions because you know you base your decisions on your true values. You have goals, dreams and you know how to work towards them.
This is only an introduction to a very vast subject that is curated, simple living. The journey to simplicity is a long road, paved with trial and error, but it is also a road to self-discovery, growth and contentment. It takes time, as it is a part of growth as a human being, and that is all right, in fact you may find the journey more enjoyable than the destination itself. Wouldn’t that be something!
CONSCIOUS ME 