Enough
Less is more, or so they say. Who are "they" anyway? Do they fall on the side of having less or having more? Is there such a way to stand on the line, right in the middle- that place of enough?
What is enough? I guess that depends on who you ask. My compassion children sleeping on dirt floors may answer differently than you or I ranked among the world's wealthiest.
Despite my husband and my most "desperate years" of sweet, newlywed, college life bliss, we have never known true need.
During that season of life, my husband and I lived in government assisted housing. In other words, we applied for and qualified to live in the ghetto. Our apartment was on the upper level of the dirty brown building we called home with daily drug deals happening below. Our rent was based on a percentage of our income each month. We were both full time students and my husband had a very part time job on campus.
We didn't have "much" but we had enough, enough to cover rent, buy groceries each week, and still have a whopping $15 a month to put towards "fun". We had one car which I drove back and fourth to my clinicals each day leaving my husband to take the city bus which served as a daily dose of entertainment for him.
Amazingly, we even managed some memorable vacations during this season of barely enough, back when gas was cheap and campgrounds even cheaper. Our little Toyota saw a good part of the US during those years and the memories we made to this day are still some of my favorites.
Fast forward to now, almost a decade later, in 3 kids deep, and a house that triples the size of the my childhood home. Insert the "Hallelujah" here, we have arrived.... or at least we somehow managed to cross over into "real adulthood."
That line of finally having"enough".
No more school bills, or car bills, no more "fun money" or strict budgets. And as an added bonus, most months we are even able to pay above and beyond on our mortgage, tuck some away for retirement, give a portion, and stow away a jump start for our kids educations. Long gone are the days of "tenting it" across the United States. We have traded our little Toyota Corolla in for airline tickets.
Although we are barely considered "middle class" and do not aspire to a three figure salary, we are comfortable by all standards, living the dream. "Contentment" should be my middle name followed by a hyphenated "Enough". So whats with this stirring within me? This unsettled feeling that maybe, just maybe, all of this security, this place of "arriving" doesn't make things simpler but more complicated?
Why do some of my happiest days seem to be in that season of life that held less? Somewhere along the way did I buy into bits and pieces of the American dream that screams MORE is MORE? Did I get my mores and lesses mixed up?
In the midst of the perceived American dream, there is an undertow, an uprising almost, of minimal living.
Why am I so captivated by the tiny house movement that I now have a Pinterest board dedicated to it? ... What drew me to set aside precious time to watch the latest Netflix documentary on Minimalism?... Why can I not help but click on the Mommy Blog about the woman who got rid of all her kids toys and claims to have a happier home?.... or toy with the idea of attempting *Project 333 myself? Is there anything to this urgent plea to live simply?...
This new call that challenges that LESS is actually MORE.
This is where I insert my dramatic eye roll and go back to cleaning my house which takes two days out of my week, leaving only average results. But first I must pick up our mountains of endless toys that seem to decorate every corner of our space. Now where to put it all..... Thank goodness for our basement storage. Heaven only knows we need another box packed up of 'who knows what' for 'who knows when' in case we may need it 'someday.'
And it's not just the basement, but the garage. Now that summer is in full force we no longer have room in our two car garage to park two cars. Anyone else seeing the irony in all of this?
It's not JUST the stuff. It's the time.... or should I say, lack there of?
Between multiple kids, sports options galore, extracurriculars, church activities, volunteer opportunities, homework, hobbies, weekly TV shows, and everything in between time is ANYTHING but simple or abundant. Forget a family calendar, each family member needs their own.
But busy is OK, isn't it? More time in means more out.... or maybe it means less out....or maybe more time is less time.....less time is more time....??? Enough is enough....or not enough...or......huh.
Could it be that all this stuff, activities, and time fillers make life feel FULL.....but maybe not the FULL I have been looking for? Maybe there is something to this "less is more" living. More time, less clutter of physical space and mental capacity. Less is more....
A small part of me wants to be all in. Give it a try. Give away our stuff, downsize the house, cover every square inch of everything we own, keeping only the essentials. Maybe I should clear our calendar, reserve our time and energy for only the best - not all this fluffy good?.... It's Oh-So-Tempting but also Oh-So-Overwhelming. Where is a person to begin?
Steps are often better than leaps so steps, I suppose.
Step #1 for us, Perspective. What if we began to put this "less is more" mentality before us in the everyday, even the small decisions?
Step#2 for us, Purge our stuff. Maybe it's time to go through all of our stuff and I mean REALLY go through it. How many serving bowls does a girl really need for the handful of times a year I actually host a meal?
Step #3 for us, Borrow. BUT what if I NEED those serving bowls someday or whatever it is and we no longer own it? Chances are there about 10 people in our lives who own something they would be more than happy to loan to us. We resolve not to own all the extras, but to borrow them.
Step #4 for us, Prioritize time. There are SO many good things out there to be a part of but what if we only chose the best? What would it look like to go against the norm and participate in one or maybe two extra things at a time? What if how we spent our time was life giving and left room for breath? We want to carefully think out both "yes's" and "no's".
Step #5 for us, Dream. I plan on keeping my Pinterest board of tiny houses and my husband and I will continue to keep half an eye on the housing market with the idea of downsizing someday in mind. We are still going to dream and try to not settle for the more is more mentality.
Maybe there is something to this movement towards simplicity. I can't help but think of a quote I came across this week that grabbed my attention. "Sometimes if you don't risk anything- you're actually risking everything." Maybe it's time for us to start taking some risks. Maybe there is something to this whole "less is more" thing. We will never know unless we try.
*Project 333 is the minimalist fashion challenge that invites you to dress with 33 items or less for 3 months.
What is enough? I guess that depends on who you ask. My compassion children sleeping on dirt floors may answer differently than you or I ranked among the world's wealthiest.
Despite my husband and my most "desperate years" of sweet, newlywed, college life bliss, we have never known true need.
During that season of life, my husband and I lived in government assisted housing. In other words, we applied for and qualified to live in the ghetto. Our apartment was on the upper level of the dirty brown building we called home with daily drug deals happening below. Our rent was based on a percentage of our income each month. We were both full time students and my husband had a very part time job on campus.
We didn't have "much" but we had enough, enough to cover rent, buy groceries each week, and still have a whopping $15 a month to put towards "fun". We had one car which I drove back and fourth to my clinicals each day leaving my husband to take the city bus which served as a daily dose of entertainment for him.
Amazingly, we even managed some memorable vacations during this season of barely enough, back when gas was cheap and campgrounds even cheaper. Our little Toyota saw a good part of the US during those years and the memories we made to this day are still some of my favorites.
Fast forward to now, almost a decade later, in 3 kids deep, and a house that triples the size of the my childhood home. Insert the "Hallelujah" here, we have arrived.... or at least we somehow managed to cross over into "real adulthood."
That line of finally having"enough".
No more school bills, or car bills, no more "fun money" or strict budgets. And as an added bonus, most months we are even able to pay above and beyond on our mortgage, tuck some away for retirement, give a portion, and stow away a jump start for our kids educations. Long gone are the days of "tenting it" across the United States. We have traded our little Toyota Corolla in for airline tickets.
Although we are barely considered "middle class" and do not aspire to a three figure salary, we are comfortable by all standards, living the dream. "Contentment" should be my middle name followed by a hyphenated "Enough". So whats with this stirring within me? This unsettled feeling that maybe, just maybe, all of this security, this place of "arriving" doesn't make things simpler but more complicated?
Why do some of my happiest days seem to be in that season of life that held less? Somewhere along the way did I buy into bits and pieces of the American dream that screams MORE is MORE? Did I get my mores and lesses mixed up?
In the midst of the perceived American dream, there is an undertow, an uprising almost, of minimal living.
Why am I so captivated by the tiny house movement that I now have a Pinterest board dedicated to it? ... What drew me to set aside precious time to watch the latest Netflix documentary on Minimalism?... Why can I not help but click on the Mommy Blog about the woman who got rid of all her kids toys and claims to have a happier home?.... or toy with the idea of attempting *Project 333 myself? Is there anything to this urgent plea to live simply?...
This new call that challenges that LESS is actually MORE.
This is where I insert my dramatic eye roll and go back to cleaning my house which takes two days out of my week, leaving only average results. But first I must pick up our mountains of endless toys that seem to decorate every corner of our space. Now where to put it all..... Thank goodness for our basement storage. Heaven only knows we need another box packed up of 'who knows what' for 'who knows when' in case we may need it 'someday.'
And it's not just the basement, but the garage. Now that summer is in full force we no longer have room in our two car garage to park two cars. Anyone else seeing the irony in all of this?
It's not JUST the stuff. It's the time.... or should I say, lack there of?
Between multiple kids, sports options galore, extracurriculars, church activities, volunteer opportunities, homework, hobbies, weekly TV shows, and everything in between time is ANYTHING but simple or abundant. Forget a family calendar, each family member needs their own.
But busy is OK, isn't it? More time in means more out.... or maybe it means less out....or maybe more time is less time.....less time is more time....??? Enough is enough....or not enough...or......huh.
Could it be that all this stuff, activities, and time fillers make life feel FULL.....but maybe not the FULL I have been looking for? Maybe there is something to this "less is more" living. More time, less clutter of physical space and mental capacity. Less is more....
A small part of me wants to be all in. Give it a try. Give away our stuff, downsize the house, cover every square inch of everything we own, keeping only the essentials. Maybe I should clear our calendar, reserve our time and energy for only the best - not all this fluffy good?.... It's Oh-So-Tempting but also Oh-So-Overwhelming. Where is a person to begin?
Steps are often better than leaps so steps, I suppose.
Step #1 for us, Perspective. What if we began to put this "less is more" mentality before us in the everyday, even the small decisions?
Step#2 for us, Purge our stuff. Maybe it's time to go through all of our stuff and I mean REALLY go through it. How many serving bowls does a girl really need for the handful of times a year I actually host a meal?
Step #3 for us, Borrow. BUT what if I NEED those serving bowls someday or whatever it is and we no longer own it? Chances are there about 10 people in our lives who own something they would be more than happy to loan to us. We resolve not to own all the extras, but to borrow them.
Step #4 for us, Prioritize time. There are SO many good things out there to be a part of but what if we only chose the best? What would it look like to go against the norm and participate in one or maybe two extra things at a time? What if how we spent our time was life giving and left room for breath? We want to carefully think out both "yes's" and "no's".
Step #5 for us, Dream. I plan on keeping my Pinterest board of tiny houses and my husband and I will continue to keep half an eye on the housing market with the idea of downsizing someday in mind. We are still going to dream and try to not settle for the more is more mentality.
Maybe there is something to this movement towards simplicity. I can't help but think of a quote I came across this week that grabbed my attention. "Sometimes if you don't risk anything- you're actually risking everything." Maybe it's time for us to start taking some risks. Maybe there is something to this whole "less is more" thing. We will never know unless we try.
*Project 333 is the minimalist fashion challenge that invites you to dress with 33 items or less for 3 months.
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