Last week we shared an inspiring interview with author Julie Pointer Adams. Julie is a keen advocate of a Wabi-Sabi lifestyle – a Japanese concept around the beauty of imperfection and enjoying the simplicity of life. Wabi-sabi isn’t about old and vintage things, instead it a way of thinking and living and enjoying life beyond the material – the moments, memories and people who make it special.
Wabi-Sabi extends to the concept of simplicity in life. Now more than ever, people are slowly beginning to understand that consuming less can help you enjoy life more.
The following strategies can help you consume less and get more pleasure from the items you do choose to include in your life.
1. Redirect wasteful energy into more meaningful things
2. Being mindfully about stuff
People often assume that scaling back their possessions means chucking everything of value. But it is more about understanding what each item you own means to you. Knowing what’s important to you is just as crucial as understanding what to discard. This can work for things like clothes, shoes and household items. How many plates, cups and spoons do you really need? How many pairs of jeans or pants do you really wear?
A great way to do this is to consider a capsule wardrobe for every season – staples that can be mixed and matched to provide a new outfit combination everyday with essentially a limited number of items in the capsule.
3. Live within your means
It is so temping to put expenses on your credit card and not have to worry about payments until 30-60-90 days out. This buy-today-pay-tomorrow mindset is quite damaging. Instead try to budget and live within your means. Figure out how many days you can go with out buying anything – essentials and non-essentials. This really trains you to use what you have and reduce waste.
4. Invest in quality verses quantity
By focusing on high-quality, durable, long-lasting products, you might hit the top of your affordability range. But consider the return on investment. Paying more for a well-made item means you can use it for years — sometimes decades. You’ll be able to shop less often and replace fewer goods, keeping more out of the waste stream.
Fast fashion has a higher cost than you may realize. Consider the low wages and hazardous working conditions garment workers face, and the environmental impact pesticides have on fabric crops. And not all quality goods are expensive. Own only what you absolutely love and what you want to live with for a long time. Think of your possessions as a collection and when you get something new, something else gets donated or recycled.
Shopping this way can help create a sharp distinction between need and want that will serve you in multiple ways.
5. Cultivate a mindset of contentment
Whether you’re consuming food, drink, media, live entertainment, or the sights and sounds of recreational shopping, stay present. Take a moment to consider whether you’re actually “full.” Notice if you’re consuming out of habit or boredom. Many of us are used to going past our satiety point. We numb out and eat the rest of what’s on the plate or watch a lackluster TV show and waste a whole afternoon. But cultivating presence can help developing an understanding of what truly brings us pleasure, and knowing how to savor what we’re doing, eating, or watching in the moment.
Research has indicated that about 90 percent of our happiness comes from how we process the world, which means how you look at your circumstances and only 10 percent is external, which means the stuff you consume in some way. The way you think about what you have really matters. It can lead to happiness or unhappiness, depending on how you’re looking at it. A good way to figure this out is to track your consumption and feelings associated with that in a journal and review your thoughts/emotions periodically.
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