Making Space
I’ve been spending a significant amount of time lately making space. In a society hungry for instant validation and gratification accompanied by the incessant accumulation of people (followers/friends/connections) and things (self-explanatory), I’ve begun a purging journey that I feel has already lightened my life a little.
Purging People
I have begun to delete contacts from my phone, unfriended many from my social media friend lists, and removed fruitless and unnecessary professional connections. I’ve scoured my email contacts and at every opportunity, I delete. I’ve stopped following others on social media where there is no value or purpose for our connection. I’ve deleted multiple apps that I’ve never tapped and even those that held minimal but inconsistent value. Every time an email comes in from a source I’d previously subscribed to, I unsubscribe immediately. I used to wake up to 50 emails every morning and spent the first fifteen minutes of my day deleting them because (1) I like to keep a tidy inbox and (2) I could not care less about the content. It just isn’t a part of my current reality, so letting go felt freeing.
All that clutter somehow makes us feel more connected, wanted, needed, important, and included. But at the end of the day, there is no true sense of belonging. It doesn’t cure loneliness. Or boredom. Or isolation. We are not more valued, understood, seen, or appreciated. It is just filler. I’m about meaningful notifications these days. When I get an alert, I want it to be a welcome one. The weight of all these empty connections was suffocating and like many of us, I allowed myself to be drawn into it. At one time in my life and at one time in my career, there may have been a purpose and perhaps for some of you, that purpose still exists. For now, any professional requests with no obvious or clearly stated purpose get a hard no. All I can attest to is that personally and professionally, unfriending, unfollowing, and unsubscribing has provided me more room to allow for other, better things to come into my world. Letting people go, where there is no value or reciprocity can be especially scary and even sad, but it’s oftentimes necessary. Study good and hard as to why you hold on and you’ll usually realize that it’s less about them and more about you needing to fill a space. Unnecessary clutter.
The more I de-clutter, the more I feel I am able to attract the kinds of things in my life that I really want and need. While the cliché reads, “as one door closes, another opens,” that logic actually does apply here. We only have so much capacity in our personal world, in our lives, in our hearts, in our minds, and in our bodies, and sometimes we have to turn things off or away.
I take full responsibility for my choices regarding the use of my time and energy and recognize that every time I say yes to something, I am saying no to something else.
Our time and energy are not infinite. We will go to sleep today and we hope to wake up tomorrow. We can’t have it all, nor keep it all. There is only so much space. And so, the reverse is also true; every time we say no to something, we invite the opportunity for a better yes. I’m making room, and in that room, I’m opening more windows to let the light in and to let my light out.
Purging Things
Do you ever see that sweater hanging in your closet that you have never really liked and that you always refrain from wearing, but it’s still hanging there? And once a year, you wear it and detest it for every moment of the day. Then you get home from work, change into something comfortable and toss those clothes in the laundry bin. That shirt that you don’t want, don’t wear, and don’t like gets another trip through the laundry cycle, only to sit for another year, unloved and untouched. I have drawers filled with decades-old bras and panties and I’m not sure why. Shoes, laundry baskets full of them. It’s insanity, and I’m not doing it anymore. I’m letting it all go. It’s amazing how we keep these things around and after the purge, we always feel better. All that extra closet space gives me an “expanded lung” feeling. If you know, you know. So, I’m taking a new approach and clearing everything out. I have no physical or emotional room for useless things.
I think we come to a point in our lives where we can better discern between the need-to-haves (essentials) and the nice-to-haves, and my needs seem to be so few anymore.
Essential needs are exactly that, and thankfully I am able to meet them. Health is a gift I’m also fortunate to have, despite playing hard and likely abusing myself a bit along the way. Every day, I wake-up grateful for this. It’s a crap shoot and at the moment, I’m on a 51-year winning streak. I feel like making room also supports my overall health, part of the reason I’m trying to adopt the joy-of-the-purge of both tangibles and intangibles that do not inspire my wellbeing.
Then there are the nice-to-haves and we all have some of those. For me, a few of them are my sports equipment, a trip or a few getaways each year, a beautiful bottle of corked dry red from Chile, the perfect Indian takeaway, candles, a live, intimate jazz show, a sensational piece of artwork, freshly cut flowers, and high-end wrinkle cream. Could I do without any of these? Absolutely. Do I want to? Absolutely not! So, I will discard the unnecessary, provide for necessities, and treat myself to a few of my favourite things where and when I can. Balance.
Purging Wasted Words
I am known to be wordy when I write. Emails. Texts. Birthday cards. What can I say; I’m simply better at and prefer to communicate in writing. But I’ve realized lately that I need to reign that it. All those loving words on the birthday cards are staying for my immediate family. It’s heart-felt, not filler. And of course, being someone who loves to write poetry and stories, I won’t be trimming in this area either. But in some places, I’m training myself to write less, so I can write more in the spaces that make me happy. While it isn’t easy to curtail written rants on things I feel strongly about, I’m being far more selective and choosing to be concise and succinct, if I decide to even contribute at all. I’ve transitioned to the person who writes a lengthy response, re-reads it, considers whether any of it is necessary, then deletes it, because rarely if ever is it necessary. After some time and rewiring my old habits into better ones, I hope to consider necessity FIRST so I don’t waste time with the write/delete rigmarole. It’s a process. As an example, I was asked today by a co-worker on MS Teams how my week was going. I produced a rather detailed answer, some of the highlights, some of the challenges, the usual “I’m so ready for the weekend” type comment, and a mention of my looking forward to some down-time over the holidays, and then returned the question as to how their week was. In usual fashion, I proofread the response before hitting send and then stopped for a moment to reflect on my relationship with them. Their question was a pleasantry; a temperature check of sorts. What (and why) they were asking and what I produced in response were miles apart. I deleted it all and simply replied, “It’s going very well, thanks so much for asking!”
Now I may respond differently if it was a loved one that I was communicating with but even then, I’ll be more selective about the depth of my sharing because it can be a lot; I can be a lot. I in no way mean to belittle myself; I just know that I operate at a higher degree of intensity sometimes and everyone does not share that capacity. So, it really comes down to reading one’s audience. It’s about knowing with whom you can go deep versus those with whom you stick to the basics. There is room for both but expelling energy also means someone else having to receive it. I am trying to be more cognizant of that. I know those people in my life who I can have intense, insightful, and meaningful conversations with and I know those who appreciate a thumbs-up emoticon in response to, “How was your day?”
Purging Wasted Energy
I’m even making more room vocally by becoming leaner when using my voice to communicate my passion or perspective on a particular topic or issue. Those who know me know that I’m not one to shy away from speaking my mind, though I always do so in a calm, logical, and respectful way. But my experience and wisdom continue to teach me where my voice is welcome and where it is not. Again, times when I would speak up, I now choose to refrain and while it isn’t easy, it’s better because when I do choose to speak up, it will be in spaces where my voice brings value or where it can be welcomed, appreciated, and have an impact. Some battles are just not worth warring. Some are. The wisdom that life experience brings helps me to better discern between the two.
Purging Negativity
Once a news junkie, I can now barely make it through five minutes of the evening news. While I feel compelled to remain in-the-know, my goodness — it’s rarely good news. So, I’m working hard to trade in that swirling tornado of negativity for something that makes me calm, brings me joy, helps me learn, supports my growth, or makes me laugh. It’s a choice we consciously have to make and I don’t have the capacity for all of it; something has to give. For example, these days, I’ll do a quick Twitter check-in for headlines a few times a day, then swing over to TikTok for heartwarming animal videos, inspirational life lessons and learnings, quirky, interesting people being their brave and authentic selves for the world to see, amazing new music dropping , and my-oh-my, some of the most incredible recipes imaginable. We have to make a choice about what we can get rid of so we can invite better things in. And I’d rather use TikTok as a tool to make me smile instead of using the evening news as a tool to further remind me of the drama, horror and suffering in the world. As a highly sensitive person, I feel everything as if I’m living it myself. My body internalizes and reacts to it all. My soul just can’t process it anymore. Sometimes I have to willfully choose ignorance as a form of self-preservation. At this point in my life, I have to say no, so I can say yes to lighter, brighter things. I know that life is about more than puppies, rainbows, and unicorns but one’s input determines their outlook so we have to decide how we’re being fed and find the balance between being aware and being devoured.
I’m coming to realize how completely and utterly senseless it is pouring any part of myself into anything that does not provide for reciprocity or a reasonable return on investment. I am working on choosing to operate with intentionality, meaning, and purpose without losing myself in the empty, bottomless well of approval, validation, or ego. It takes a deep dive; one many are unwilling or uninterested in navigating. But as I’m on a quest to live the rest of my life as the best of my life, these realizations are so necessary. I wonder sometimes if I’m overly focused on my own mortality or whether others travel this dark but honest journey as I do. There is no doubt that for me, making better choices with my time, space, and energy are due to the growing realization that each of them are precious and finite.
I also occasionally wonder if my current approach of making space is just laziness, selfishness, sadness, a diversion from loneliness, or apathy in action. I do experience all of these in bouts from time to time. That said, I truly believe that my newly charged power purge is the result of knowing what I want and don’t want and feeling happiness on my own terms, through simplicity and minimalism.
Become a CEO (Chief Experience Officer)
Speaking of balance, at some point, and preferably earlier rather than later, we need to check the Balance Sheet in the (non-financial) statements of our lives. We are the CEO’s of our own existence. Across our lifetime, we focus on different reports in that package of statements that measure where we started and how we’re faring. When we’re younger, we focus on the Cash Flow statement. Cash in, cash out. People in. People out. Things in. Things out. Transactions. Experiences accumulating without any true reflection. Life, up-to-the-minute and on the go in real time, trying to keep our heads above water, make ends meet, surviving and eventually, hopefully thriving.
But having eyes on the Balance Sheet is where we find the sweet spot. It’s where our physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, social, and sexual assets and their respective liabilities should break even. In the context of this story, I’ve determined that my balance sheet is not in balance. Perhaps I misjudged the value of a particular person, experience, or thing in my life. Maybe I didn’t consider inflation, interest, or depreciation in my calculation. Quite possibly, the things I once saw as equity are worthless or alternatively, things I didn’t appreciate at one point in time now present as having significant value. My quest for making room allows me to consider my assets and liabilities in order to establish the necessary balance that provides for a fulfilling existence. Everything we do, everything we say, everything we want, everything we give, everything we live — we have to consider the return on investment.
This is the business of our lives. It isn’t easy and requires a healthy level of discipline, like any good habit that supports our self-care. Making room provides space, clarity, and the opportunity to live our lives in the most meaningful way. It means taking stock, learning to let go of that which no longer serves us and that which is beyond our control, and investing in that which provides us with peace of mind, body, spirit, and a wrinkle-free complexion.
