I have very simple wants in life, and want to enjoy simple experiences in my own back yard and around the globe.Travel takes money, but I don't need expensive meals and crap souvenirs once I get there, and having a few friends over for a simple meal, drinks included, can be less than a typical drive through McDonald's for a family of four. And yet, I still find myself with crap in my grocery cart that we shouldn't be eating, a calendar that has optional activities that do not provide meaningful enjoyment, and trips to Target that too often include a receipt twice as long as it should have been due to unplanned or needed items coming home with me. Just yesterday a set of six Christmas cookie cutters, on clearance for $2.00 came home with me. I have a canister of cookie cutters already, and short of gingerbread boys, I haven't made cut out cookies in years.
I like the picture downshifting gives as opposed to the other phrase I've heard, downsizing. Downsizing implies getting or doing less, where downshifting says to me, intentional and deliberate choices in what we decide to get or do. Downsizing has connotations of job loss and mortgage foreclosure. Downshifting makes me think of a skilled race car driver, carefully correcting his course along the race route for an optimal finish.
I didn't get nearly as much done this weekend as I would have liked on the cleaning and organizing nature. I did however, spend some good time reading and learning from others. As for that calendar being filled with less than enjoyable things, I took a look and did some much needed editing.
Downshifting IS a good word to use for what many of us are trying to accomplish. I'm glad you found something on a blog that resonated with you. 8-)
ReplyDeleteIt really was what I needed to read yesterday. Guess what? Probably wouldn't have found without BUF. Thank you!
DeleteVery inspiring post. Isn't it neat, that feeling that knowing letting some of that "stuff" fall by the wayside, clearing the extra out of the way, realizing there isn't as much need as we thought makes it so much easier for us to soar, really really soar! Life is precious. Stuff, generally, is not.
ReplyDeleteStuff really is just stuff. I think about how much better $ and time used aquiring stuff could have been spent and cringe a bit. But as she says in post, little downshifts get you where you want to go and today is a new day to make different choices than I made yesterday.
DeleteBUF... that's fun! I like it even more now, haha!
ReplyDeleteIt is a cute anagram. In the BUF, and at my age!
DeleteYou know that I completely agree... it's about great memories, rather than 'stuff'. Jx
ReplyDeletePurging will continue and a careful eye to the real cost of the items purchased. I think some of my excess in a week easily would cover one more night of a get away, and that would stay with me always.
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