If you feel like your life is off-kilter in some way, you probably sense that you need to make some changes. Perhaps you need to find a different profession, or you must purge toxic relationships that drag you down. Maybe you feel that you need simplicity and inner peace, such as the Buddhists attempt to achieve.
Let’s talk about some ways you might simplify your life if you feel dissatisfied or unhappy.
You Can Find a Different Career Path
You have probably heard expressions before like “if you do something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” That’s a little trite, but it really is true. If you enjoy your work, you probably feel content more often than not.
Conversely, if you have to work doing something you dislike or even despise, you’re making it very hard on yourself. Maybe, as part of simplifying your life, you’ll quit your unsatisfying job, and you’ll come up with some new way to support yourself and occupy your time.
You might love it if you come up with a job where you don’t need to brave the morning commute. Maybe you’re not the most confident driver, and you feel stress having to dodge eighteen-wheelers on the highway while trying to get to the office. The FMCSA says that 30% of fatal truck accidents involve excess speed, and some of those drivers are in a big hurry.
Maybe you’ll find a job where you can work from home instead. If you can clock in and work from a space where you feel comfortable, that might rid you of much stress and anxiety.
You Can Start Meditating
Many individuals feel like they begin to relax when they start meditating regularly. You can use a phone app or watch some YouTube videos to learn how to do it if you’ve never tried it before.
Meditation is about being present in a given moment. It can help if you ever feel scattered or like you lack focus.
It also reveals to you how your body is doing. If you take some time to close your eyes, breathe, and take a mental and physical inventory, you can better assess whether you’re in a stable place or need more dramatic life changes.
Get Rid of Your TV
Many people who want to simplify their lives do so by getting rid of the TV or TVs they have in their homes. A TV is a dominant presence. You rarely see a living room or a den these days that doesn’t have one. You may have set up the whole room around it.
When you remove your TVs, you force yourself to do something else. You might start going for more walks and bike rides because you no longer have that option. You can replace the TVs with some books that you have meant to read but have not gotten around to yet.
TV has entertainment power, but it might also be a significant stress source, especially if you watch the news and what you see distresses you. You can easily live a much simpler life by eliminating TV from it.
Fast Once Per Week
Some individuals also simplify their lives and find a new focus if they fast once per week or even once per month. While some religions fast on holy days, you can also do so at any time because it can be a reminder of what’s truly important.
If you skip breakfast and lunch one day and don’t break your fast until the evening meal when the sun goes down, it sharpens your senses. For the hours when you’re hungry, you realize that much of what you do during a typical day is not that important. Your body has more immediate, pressing needs, and all the existential angst that you bring on yourself during a normal day is not as vital as you make it out to be.
When you allow yourself to have that meal after depriving your body of food for a few hours, you appreciate it so much more. The food tastes amazing because you have briefly known what it’s like to go without it.
You might also reduce the number of things you own to live more simply, giving Goodwill or the Salvation Army your unwanted items. Often, if you feel dissatisfied with your life, simplicity is how you can defy the rat race, consumerism, and everything else to which society dictates you should dedicate yourself.
