What are you Subtracting from your Life……Or are you Adding?
#MakingBetterDecisions, #Goals, #focusonwhatmatters, #Wealth, #Careers
“The soul grows by subtraction, not addition.” — Henry David Thoreau
When we moved from Bangalore to Mumbai in 2007, our apartment size reduced by 25% but the rental amount doubled. Real estate used to (and still does) command a significant premium in Mumbai compared to the rest of India — somewhat like New York in the US, I imagine. As things turned out, we ended up living in Mumbai for the next seven years and during this time, the biggest realization that my wife and I had was the ability to live comfortably and happily with less. You really do not need much to live a great life. Two-bedroom apartment was indeed a luxury!
All this started to change when we moved from Mumbai to Pune in 2014. Our apartment size doubled and our furniture was good enough for just about half of our apartment but eventually we filled it up . All the good lessons we learnt in living a rather contented life when we moved to Mumbai, were slowly unlearnt after moving to Pune. Instead of subtracting things from life, we started adding again.
Quality of life improves by subtracting things from life except when you are adding to deepen the quality.
“The Key is not to prioritise what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities” — Steven Covey
As the access to and availability of high-quality TV programs increased, quality of viewing experience decreased. Whenever my wife and I sit to watch something on TV (increasingly uncommon occurrence in our lives these days), we lose too much time in deciding what to watch and end up watching very little of anything at all.
As the number of books I read increased, the amount of learning decreased. I was keen on increasing the number of books I read and on lapping up as much knowledge as I could in as short a period of time as possible. As my interest areas increased, I was making lesser progress in deepening my expertise in any one area.
As I ran more intense runs, I actually ended up injuring myself more. As I increased the number of my social connections, number of genuine relationships decreased.
Thankfully, I was able to address many of these situations. I still read quite a few books but never in a hurry to complete. I limit my reading to only two or three areas of keen interest to me and this is helping me develop strong expertise and subconscious intuition in those areas. I maintain far fewer active social relationships these days and consequently my social connections have deepened significantly.
Beyond a certain benign threshold, adding stuff tends to decrease overall value. Satisfaction and a sense of progress comes from deep engagement. Deep engagement is not possible when mind space is scattered over a number of items. Adding depth in the right areas tends to exponentially increase value whereas adding breadth beyond a point tends to have the opposite effect.
Your strengths are aligned to your core inclinations. By jumping from one activity to another, you tend to inhibit the emergence of your strengths. By subtracting activities and focusing your life on only those discretionary activities that truly matter to you, there is a real chance to significantly enhance the quality of your life by increasing vitality, purpose and eventually contentment. It’s not about absolute minimalism as much as it is about minimalizing to your true identity.
“Rolling Stone gathers no Moss” — ancient proverb
The problem with adding items to your life is that each new item tends to recursively add its own overheads in your lives. A larger (than required) house or a car means additional maintenance and insurance expenditure. The real tyranny of adding things to our lives manifests particularly when we are not sure what we want out of our lives. New shiny things demand our attention — latest version of Apple phone that has a bigger (or perhaps a smaller) screen or a new fitness watch in the market with more accurate measurement of your swimming workouts or a new investment fund that uses ChatGPT to capture hidden opportunities. Constantly taking on new exciting hobbies or new ways of exercise (like rope jumping, functional etc) will interfere the flow of getting real benefits from these activities.
Mixing things up and incorporating new ways of doing things is important because it keeps life interesting and exciting. A runner can cross train by cycling for a while and perhaps swap that with swimming or some other suitable alternative. Changing the core activity from running to cycling to swimming to something else will not let you develop depth in any one activity. One could rearrange their furniture periodically but constantly replacing them with different styles or motifs can be considerable drain on your mental energy, time and money (unless of course, you are an interior designer or someone with passion for designing).
Bottomline
“If you Look at what you have in life, you will always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you will never have enough” — Oprah Winfrey
Like the great sculptors who chisel away the unnecessary rock to let the sculpture emerge, it is better to subtract stuff from your life to let your real strengths emerge. Adding stuff increases the weight you carry and lowers your speed and reduces the distance you are able to cover. It scatters your focus and reduces your chances of developing meaningful progress. Default nature of the world is to keep adding stuff to your life. So, subtracting stuff needs to be a conscious and regular effort or better yet, a conscious attitude.
