04/08/2020
Less is better is a principle whose time has come.
We are but yet in the winter of our pandemic. And there remain so many ill, or tending to the ill. Yet this too shall pass, and in its stead, a spring will come, of which many of us are already beginning to experience its bloom in our lives.
That spring is a return to essentialism, an appeal to a simpler life, stripped of the burdensome, unnecessary vain layers we’ve acquired, and
laid bare to our souls, which… thankfully,
have simpler needs to sustain themselves,
and to find peace and happiness.
“There is tremendous freedom in learning that we can eliminate the nonessentials, that we are no longer controlled by other people’s agendas, and that we get to choose. With that invincible power we can discover our highest point of contribution, not just to our lives or careers, but to the world.
What if all students had time to think about their highest contribution to their future so that when they left high school they were not just starting on the race to nowhere?
What if businesses eliminated meaningless meetings and replaced them with space for people to think and work on their most important projects? What if employees pushed back against time-wasting email chains, purposeless projects, and unproductive meeting so they could be utilized at their highest level of contribution to their companies and in their careers?
What if society stopped telling us to buy more stuff and instead allowed us to create more space to breathe and think? What if society encouraged us to reject what has been accurately described as doing things we detest, to buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like?
What if we stopped being oversold the value of having more and being undersold the value of having less?
What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance?
What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?
What if the whole world shifted from the undisciplined pursuit of more to the disciplined pursuit of less… only better?
I have a vision of people everywhere having the courage to live a life true to themselves instead of the life others expect of them.
I have a vision of everyone – children, students, mothers, fathers, employees, managers, executives, world leaders – learning to better tap into more of their intelligence, capability, resourcefulness, and initiative to live more meaningful lives. I have a vision of all these people courageously doing what they came here on this earth to do.
(Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?)”
---- ESSENTIALISM – Greg Mckeown
