One gift in this life that I love celebrating – and one which we are often not grateful enough for, in fact often don’t even recognize, is the virtue of keeping life simple.
I might fantasize about living in a home with six bedrooms, a library and a landscaped garden. In reality, my husband and I run three businesses from a two-and-a-half bedroom home. The garage is both his office and the laundry and my writing desk is in our bedroom – so my early-morning typing is always at risk of waking the sleeping giant (aka hubby).
This month (and what better time than the start of a new year?), I have been de-cluttering. Feng shui practitioners believe this process removes stagnant energy from a home or workplace, allowing new energy (and a whole world of possibilities) to sweep inside your doors – and your life. I always feel refreshed and invigorated when I clean, de-clutter and organise so maybe there’s truth in these principles.
However, I’m a sentimental person, so it is often difficult for me to let go of hundred-year-old knick knacks inherited from my Great Uncle or a chipped mug that was once given to me by a now departed friend. We will never forget our memories of loved ones, but too much clutter and immersing ourselves in our past all the time can sometimes thwart us from moving on to the next stage in our short life on this world.
So I’ve had to be quite ruthless in discarding those objects in my home that are no longer useful or inspiring to me at this point in my life. To do this effectively, I have to focus on two things: 1) That someone else has a greater use for these items that I’m not using; and 2) By releasing them back into the world, I am allowing space in my life for new ideas and possibilities. De-cluttering my house, although sometimes frustrating and agonising at the start of the process, is an incredibly simple action that you can implement in your life to create new energy in 2014. Now that’s certainly something to celebrate at the start of a new year.
What are you celebrating this week? I’m celebrating the many ways in which I can simplify my life.
This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things.
To be part of this blog hop, all you have to do is follow the link and put your name on the Mr.Linky list, and then be sure to post every Friday about something you’re grateful for that week.
It can be about writing or family or school or general life.