The Surprising Result of Decluttering Life
I have in the past allowed my life to be driven more by others expectations than my own. I allowed those expectations to be manifest through positions I held and roles I took on.
I allow my life to be cluttered with expectations.
For a time, I was dropping what I was doing and stepping in to look after a job that someone else wasn’t keeping their commitment to, often at the drop of a hat. I found myself juggling what I wanted to do with what was needed in order to pick up the slack created by another.
Then I got sick. I kept on meeting those expectations, putting my own wishes aside to make room for that illness. I figured it was just a bug and if I made a bit of room, it would leave. It didn’t. I ended up in hospital and then a long recovery time.
That illness forced some people to step up and do things that previously I was doing because no one would step up. It decluttered my life. As my strength came back, I decided that the buck would no longer stop with me.
I took back the tasks I wanted to do. What I wasn’t doing though was pursuing business activities that I had long wanted to do.
Then the pandemic happened.
Now my time was 100% mine. I immediately started doing what I’d been putting off for years. I started working on building a business. What an interesting couple of years this has been.
I have more time for writing. More time for reading. More time for spending quality time with myself doing what I want. More time for learning and meeting some neat people.
I’m liking the new life enough, I have zero desire to pick up the other things that held me back. Let someone else carry those loads. I’ve done my time with them.
Have you decluttered your life?
Life is given once so make the decisions of your life what suits you. Be yourself.
***I have in the past allowed my life to be driven more by others expectations than my own. I allowed those expectations to be manifest through positions I held and roles I took on.
I allow my life to be cluttered with expectations.***
OHh I can so relate to those words, up until I retired, or actually knew I was going to retire in a few months, did I realized I was living my life in the expectations of others, also taking on the work load of others as I knew otherwise it would not get done.
One I had planned my retirement date I started off loading work that others should have been doing and slowly phased down what was my tasks, for a couple of reasons, most importantly to me at the time, I felt it would not have been good for me to go from running at 200% at work one day to 0 the day i retired and I had to slowly phase myself into the change, and secondly after a small health scare I knew I had to make changes.
Now my timing for retirement worked out perfect in a way as it was just as the pandemic was hitting off here, but looking back I realized for so many years I was 90% living for work, instead or working on living and enjoying life.
I am so glad that you have made these changes and are now laving life more to the full
I have a suspicion that as you started offloading work to the people that should have been doing it all along it was a shock to their system.
Smart move to ease down into retirement. Although, you've probably discovered it doesn't take much to get just as busy in retirement except you're doing things you want to.
I am certainly doing more of what I want to do.
Ohh yes indeed people were nit happy having to do their own work lol
I realized I was over the top when it came to being zealous at work as I approached retirement my work load ending up being assigned to five other people 😂
And indeed retirement is just as busy but we’re deciding what to spend our time on
Life is so short not to be doing the things that make is happy and feel productive.
It makes me happy to know you are finally doing what you enjoy and with those you enjoy being around!!
Oh, yes, I started a few weeks ago getting rid of 25 years of old clothes in ever size under the sun. LOLL Once finished with that more is on the chopping block!!
OH welll... if we want to explore physical clutter... I'd heave to write a different post lol
I have discovered that crisis (health, pandemic, or just about anything else that interrupts the status quo) is a wonderful simplifier of life.
Crisis is painful. Crisis is difficult, but there is a real beauty in the way it clears out the clutter. All of the sudden only what is truly important stays in focus. Everything else disappears.
the pandemic starting certainly gave me the perfect time to move out of stuff. No explanations needed, things were not happening.
With my own health issues that meant extra caution, it just keeps things a lot easier.