well hello there. After not having written anything for month on end, I thought: hey, you got this blog, it's boring to only write in your diary (and I do that with an actual pen *gasp*), so write "to" other people.
So I write again and to day I write about minimalism. This is a concept, that isn't actual new to me, but that very often gets out of my focus. For the time being, it is back in my focus.
The reason it came back lies in my health, after decades of mistreating my body with shitty food, my body shot back. So now my gallblader ist almost bust and will eventually to be hauled out. My thyroid-measures (I was born with an underfunction of the thyroid) were bad, my try-glycerides were bad and - for the first time in my life - my iron count wasn't too thrilling. Oh and I forgot my allergy to histamins.
The good news? My cholosterol was good and so was the blood-pressuere and there is nothing wrong with my heart. Well, that's something!
How to improve the rest though? Well, change what I eat. Actually, there is not much that I can still eat or drink. I thought! BUT that's not true. There are a lot of things I can eat, just hardly anything of the stuff, that I liked. The fatty, oversalted stuff.
I do like sweets, but if I had to choose - disregarding health-issues for the moment - between no more fatty and salty stuff or no more sweet stuff? I'd choose no more sweet stuff.
The question doesn't arise, because for me, it is far less fatty and salty stuff and leave off sugar.
What has all that to do with minimalism? I made me change my eating habits or at least start to, that meant, mainly, that I had to change my shopping haits as well. Which resulted in less money spent for food.
Unfortunately, it resulted in more money spent for STUFF. Probably to compensate. So instead of weight and health-issues, I accumulated more stuff. I write more, because I already had more stuff, than I needed.
Then, in 2014 we had to count, how long any single work-process takes us in minutes. It turned out, in my case: not many. That led me think: why would I work a 41 hour work, if I don't need that time to do my suff? So I started calculating (and I am severly maths-challenged). It turned out however, that I could reduce my working hours - and with that my salary - down to 35 hours a week and still have more money than I need for a comfortable life. Sounds like a dream? It is true though.
Well partly. I did reduce my working hours, but not my spending. YOU do the maths now..
Still: I got back SIX valuable hours of my time. Six hours to spend as l like and use sensibly or senseless. Well, I started off with senseless. I did not absolutely work. But partly. I felt relieved, because I did not have to work so much. But I did not use the time properly. So, I searched for MORE Sense, Value, fulfillment.
Before I started working part-time in 2015, I had ordered a new fridge. Mine was old, not energy-efficient and beginning to fall apart. So I got me a new fridge, engergy-efficient and a bargain to boot. That meant, that I had to clear out my kitchen.
Did I clear it out: I carried out FIVE trashbags, three boxes and one of those pull-along buggies for shopping. I am still possessed of to many kitchen utensils and I mean: I AM POSSESSED, not I possess. Still: it is much less and I am continually reducing the stuff. Throwing away, giving away, selling.
Next off was my closet. I have had my since 1997 and closets get a lot of wear and tear. So two of three doors did not work properly anymore, the shelves loosened then and one pull out thing (don't know the correct name right now) started to fall apart.
I was lucky though: my uncle and aunt are going to chance flats and they gave me there closet. A very good closet and I got it for free. It meant however, to clear out my closet
and let me tell you: for a person, that dislikes clothes shopping as I do (and that started at about 6 years old) I had A LOT of stuff to get rid off. Another six bags, this time to donate to a clothes collection, three bags of trash, nothing to sell. While I was at it, I got rid of a lot of books in my shelves, though those are in my cellar right now. But I chucked out about 250 books.
This left one shelve free for my extrensive DVD and audiobook collection.
I have only just started to get rid of these and will go on purging here.
Much more is my collection of audiobooks from i-tunes. And my collection of dysfunctional i-pods.
And my collection of e-books is getting bigger. So far I only lost one e-reader, I am happy to tell.
So: as a minimalist, I am a work in progress, but I am continually progressing and I got virtual help from several books and websites. I only name the websites here now, you go along and look in, they are very helpful and interesting.
The minimalists.com www.theminimalists.com
Zen Habits http://zenhabits.net/
Becoming Minimalist http://www.becomingminimalist.com
Exploring alternatives http://www.exploringalternatives.ca/
And - because I think, that one fits with the others:
Random acts of kindness. https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/
I think, that they each have a blog, a facebook-account and are on google+, twitter, instagram, youtube, you name it.
They are all worthwhile and if you don't think so, there are a lot of people finding, that minimalism in one way or another is the life for them.
Because the one thing I learned already is: There is no ONE version of minimalism. It's individual!
All the best to you (oh, I put the links for those websites on in a while, but I am not only mathematically-challenged, it stretches out to technical stuff. :-) ) Well, as you can see above: Done!
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