All You Need is Less

I just don’t care anymore.

Those words spewed out of me the other day while I walked around in circles in my room, venting in my head about all the people that had “hurt my feelings”. I felt a tear run down my cheek. I looked at myself in the mirror and looked so pathetic, crying over nonsense that I stopped immediately and was awfully disgusted with myself.

“I just don’t care anymore.” Like projectile vomit they came out again.

I had been through a lot that week. I was temporarily unemployed, I had a lot of unstable and unsteady friendships, I was recently single, and I was feeling anxious about turning one year older. My life was in limbo.

My love life was a disaster. I had returned to being the hopelessly romantic Carrie Bradshaw. Except I didn’t have the apartment in Manhattan, the sex column in the news publication, or the three friends that would catch me if I fell. I only had me. At least, I thought.

When things are up in the air like that, I don’t cope well. I prefer things to be planned properly, executed in an organized fashion, and for things to go smoothly. But for some reason, that week was just all over the place. And so was I.

Last week, though, I began working full-time. The eight hour work days, paired with my two-hour lectures at school left me with little time for, how do I word this correctly, bullshit. Essentially, I became an adult. An actual adult.

It wasn’t the long work days, the achy feet, or the mature demeanour I had to take on when I walked into my new job. It was the realization that a lot of the time I spent on bullshit was spent on bullshit because I had time for bullshit. Now, I don’t.

That was my freedom.

My Dad always told me “your gut’s full”, whenever I would cry, moan, or complain about things that didn’t deserve any attention. And like many of the things he told me growing up, it didn’t make sense until recently.

The truth is…my gut was full. I had more friends than I had time for. I had more time than I knew what to do with. And I had so much to do that I never did any of it. And because I had too much of everything, in some strange way, it left me feeling unfulfilled, and even more unappreciative.

Now, I have just enough time to really and truly enjoy it. My long days end with a glass of wine and some alone time in my room. Because my time is so limited, I don’t even dare to turn on the television.

Silence is a gift.

I write what I can, while I can. I no longer force myself to sit there and feel constipation in my brain. I just let it come naturally.

I learned that all the things that took place prior to me making my entry into “adulthood”, happened because I needed to know who and what deserved the limited time I would soon have. The people that “hurt my feelings”, hurt them because the universe was telling that they weren’t worth my efforts, my time, and surely not that one lone tear that rolled down my cheek that day.

I learned that some things just happen, and some things just change. It’s neither here nor there. It just is what it is.

The key is to minimalize your needs to a very healthy low. At some point, you will receive a wake-up call that comes at you like a bucket of ice cold water in a deep sleep. A sleep that you probably would not have awoken from, not any time soon, and it is a shame to think that you might never open your eyes to see the light, the beauty, of day.

If something happened in your life recently that has led you to wonder what it all means, you better believe it means something. It might be in your best interest to take a step back, remove yourself from all that you have going on, and ask yourself if you really need it, need them.

When I felt that my feelings were hurt, it was largely my fault for allowing my feelings to be in the hands of people that wouldn’t take care of them, of me.

When I felt that I had so much to do yet I wasn’t getting anything done, it was because I took on things I didn’t want to, or need to, I took them on just because, leaving me with no motivation whatsoever to actually do it because I didn’t want to in the first place.

If you feel that you have too little of everything, chances are you have too much. And if you're unable to appreciate it, its because sometimes, what we really need, rather, all we really need, is less.

Dealing with Distraction

You sit down, you’re ready to write or read, finish your homework, get started on that essay, or whatever the case may be. But then your phone vibrates. The voices in your head tell you to check your email first. Or, my personal favorite, “I can’t work in a dirty room,” and you pick up the only two shirts that were on your floor and begin to dust everything until it’s time for bed, forgetting completely that you had something to do.

Why are we so easily distracted? Why are looming deadlines not enough to scare us into getting something done? More importantly, how do we deal with distraction?

The other day, it was time for a new post and as soon as I came up with the idea, I began writing. I had four internet tabs open, music playing, my television on, and my phone right next to me, both vibrate and ring turned on, and I was logged onto Skype. Everytime I strung a sentence together, I would check Twitter, look for a new song, change the channel, or check my phone, even though it hadn’t vibrated or rung. An hour had passed, and the one page that was supposed to be full of words only had a few. I wasted the last hour of my life on absolutely nothing.

I was pissed. I was mad at iTunes for not playing a proper shuffle set and that I had to keep changing the song. I was mad at my television for stealing my attention away from my writing. I was mad at my phone for requiring me to type in my passcode and never having a message at the end of my touchpad journey. I was mad at Twitter, I was mad at Skype…you get the point.

Then I thought, if I really want to do this, I will. So I got rid of all the distractions. I even disabled my wireless internet connection. I closed all programs and only kept open my word document. It took a few minutes for me to stop staring at the posters and paintings on my wall, and I found myself itching for the converter, but after a few minutes, my focus had been narrowed.

It narrowed so much, in fact, that I was able to apply this revelation to other aspects of life. I thought about all the things I had on my to do list, my bucket list, or my places to discover list. Why had I not done them yet? Why had I not visited those places yet? I thought about all the things that I allowed to dominate my attention, people included.

The lesson here is that there are a million and one things that can get in the way when wanting to do something. These distractions can turn a simple task into something much more time-consuming. The inevitable effect of this lack of time management is a waste of time, literally.

The simplest solution is to start becoming more conscious of what you do while you’re doing something. Are you “multi-tasking”, or are you just doing multiple tasks? Once you recognize and acknowledge bad habits, they become much easier to change.

Moreover, this will help you in the larger scope of things. If you’re trying to graduate, attempting to save money for a car or a condo, trying to write a book, or simply working on making healthier choices, all these tasks require one thing (amongst many others): focus.

Focus isn’t forgetting about everything else you have going on; it’s about properly prioritizing your tasks. Often, the ones we know will take longer to accomplish are the ones we put off, for one reason or another. But of course, I have a quote for a moment like this, and it goes as follows:

“Never give up on a goal because of the time it will take; the time will pass anyway.”

So if you find yourself farther from a goal than you had hoped, look at the things that are distracting you from drawing nearer to it, and eliminate them. Let go of the people that make you feel bad when you say no to hanging out with them, because you promised yourself you would create another painting instead. Let go of the excuses you make that stop you from doing something; like opening up an untouchable savings account because you’d rather spend money on food instead, even if it’s “only ten dollars a week”. Let go of all the voices in and outside of your head that tell you to “put it off until tomorrow.” And let go of the reasons you feel you can’t do it. Because you can, and you surely deserve to.