simplify life:
Slow Living. It is a beautiful phrase that causes us to wax romantic about green fields and misty mornings. The phrase ‘Slow Living’ causes us to dream of unhurried days and restful evenings. Slow living brings an etherial exhale from within us that challenges our emotions to contemplate the important things in life.
What is slow living?
A simple google search for “slow living” brought these results: “Slow Living is a movement where people decide to live a more balanced, meaningful life through slowing things down and appreciating both the world around them and what they have. “
Doesn’t that sound lovely? Living a more balance life, a more meaningful life, appreciation for the world around us, and for the things we have? That sounds completely fascinating. I’m here to tell you that it is possible. We’ve lived it. In fact, we are living it now. Let’s talk about it.
How do we achieve it?
For years, we spent our days waking up early (5:00 a.m. ish), getting kids to school, working a full day, running to after school extracurricular activities, church services, social events, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, caring for family, visiting with neighbors. Please pardon the run-on sentence. It’s a metaphorical indication of what our life felt like. We were busy. In fact, we were busy and on the verge of burn out.
Sometimes, this is what life offers us; the cards we’re dealt so to speak. But sometimes, it is the life we’ve chosen – the life we’ve cultivated and created. Little by little we add in one more thing, say yes to one more activity, accept one more invitation. Suddenly, the thing(s) that once excited us, like buying a new home, have become drudgery. The thing we once felt excitement for we now feel exhausted by.
So how do we make a paradigm shift? I personally believe we begin with downsizing. Downsizing our belongings takes a positive toll on our lives. I’m not suggesting we all go full on minimalism. Although, I could convinced it may be a good path to follow, as well. No, what I’m suggesting, is simply removing from our lives, the things that don’t bring us joy, or that don’t add value.
This can be anything from stepping away from an extra meeting we attend every month, to limiting the activities our children engage in. Clearing our calendars can bring us peace of mind, hush the hustle, and create space for rest and time to unwind.
It can also mean clearing the physical clutter from our homes, work spaces, and lives.
Where does slow living begin?
As we clear the excess, we create space for things we silently long to do. I once contemplated how I used to love to read. Sadly, I didn’t have time to read for leisure any more. I was busy cleaning and cooking and mopping and ironing. I was busy parenting and running a household. My life was piling up around me, and I was spending my time trying to maintain it – rather than living it. I was maintaining a home and life, but I didn’t have time to actually engage in it.
We started clearing out our home little by little. The basement, office storage drawers, closets, and kitchen cabinets all got a good decluttering. And when we discarded all of the things that no longer brought us joy or added value to our lives, we had literally filled our two-car garage. So much so – a friend contacted me when she heard we were having a yard sale. She knew a lady from her church who was a refugee from another country, living in the states in a 2 bedroom apartment with her son. They had nothing. Two mattresses on the floor and some dinnerware.
I told her to bring a truck and they could have (for free) anything that they wanted. They took sheets, bedding, draperies, pillows, throw blankets, dishes and glass ware, decor items, towels and wash cloths, cookware and furniture. We furnished their whole apartment and still made over $600 at the yard sale with what remained.
What do we gain from it?
What we gain when we downsize is truly the beginning of slow living. I found that putting away dishes and laundry took me a fraction of the time because, as the saying goes, we had a place for everything – and everything in its place. I no longer had to stuff drawers or shelves to put away linens. Our clothing fit into our closets. The kitchen cabinets weren’t spilling over.
It felt as if our home could breathe again, and I could breathe again with it. I didn’t feel the constant tug to clean or organize because it was easy to maintain our living space. In the evenings, after band practice and tennis matches, dinner dishes were cleaned and put away, laundry was folded, the house was reset and I found myself reading again.
Simply downsizing our belongings created space again for things I once loved to do. There was time for more important things like corn hole tournaments in the back yard and kayaking trips down the creek. By getting rid of excess stuff we gained back additional time.
Slow living causes us to gain appreciation
Through the act of downsizing our belongings, we gained appreciation for the things we had. That didn’t just mean we appreciated the furniture in our home, or the dishes, or the bed linens. Everything that remained was a thoughtful choice.
Of course we kept the best of what we had, and that in turn created a feeling of luxury. But what we gained appreciation for again was our outdoor spaces, spending time on the back deck, in the garden, or beside the fire pit. We gained appreciation for our home again. Instead of the nearly 4,000 square feet feeling like a mammoth task we had to maintain, once again it started to feel like a retreat, a haven, a place of respite.
Downsizing was the key to the start of slow living
Now as we embark on a new adventure that takes us to a new place every year, we have learned again how important downsizing is, and how it truly is the answer to the slow living question. As we have moved from the 4,000 square feet house to a 1,300 square ft apartment, we have experienced another slow living shift.
Part of this comes from being parents of adult children. We don’t have the busy schedule we once did. But our home is also much simpler now. Again, putting away dishes and laundry takes minutes. Cleaning the apartment takes an hour at best, not the nine hours cleaning the house used to take me. (That isn’t an exaggeration.)
This downsizing of our belongings has given us time to spend at the pool, or playing disc golf. It has given us time to read and watch movies again. And because we have fewer belongings, we are able to create and live a life we dreamed of. We can pick up and move in a few days, and the moving trailer we need can be pulled with our truck. We are living life, not maintaining inventory. And it feels amazing!
