Thursday, August 4, 2016

Catching Up / Reboot

Let reality be reality.
Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
~ Lao Tzu 

Can it really be six months after my last post here? Did I give up on the course? Have I reverted to my old "maximalist" lifestyle? 

The only (good) habit I quit was the newborn habit of posting. Minimalism has become even more inspiring and incorporated in my life that I could have imagined back in January. I continued with the Uncluttered course through the first two modules, at least at first. The first involved finding our motivation, and encompassed the first two weeks that I wrote about back in January. The second module was a bit more nuts-and-bolts and involved uncluttering various rooms in (and around) our home. Together with my wife, we systematically attacked our cars, our living room, our bedroom, our spare/guest bedroom, our closet(s), and the kitchen. Each of those areas could probably stand to have us go through them again, but we both feel good about the carloads of boxes and bags we donated to Goodwill.

Somewhere around the time we were tackling the kitchen, things got a bit nebulous for me. The kitchen has never been a primary domain of mine, so many of the decisions about what and where to declutter were really not mine to make. In addition, we were both busy with our teaching jobs, and we found our time to collaborate limited. The last week of that module was to get our daughter involved and work on areas that were primarily her domain. Since we have yet to bring her fully on board with this movement, my activity in the course stalled. 

By this time, I had also grown frustrated with the Uncluttered Facebook group, too. What once felt like a small community encouraging each other grew to feel like a much larger community with many people posting long, personal stories. Some were way ahead, some were way behind, some seemed to want to show off their progress more than simply show it. Combine that with a busy work schedule, and I drifted away from the course. I knew that my initial payment guaranteed my access to the material in the future, so I resigned to resign for the time being.

The second run of the course would be in the summer months, which felt like it would work well for both me and my wife. The remaining two modules of the course were more philosophical in nature, although they would certainly include specific assignments. Module 3 was about Developing New Habits and Module 4 had to do with Experimenting With Less.

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