How to simplify my life in all aspects?

 Life itself brings joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. We are trying to be more in the first word, rather then in the second one.

One of those big personal discoveries I made in our 40ties (some sooner, some later), finding out that I desire less in order to have and be more. It might sound cryptic and like the Chinese ancient Tao sayings, but it is "my" truth, concentrated in one bold sentence.

By minimalizing our needs and wants, we discover a whole new, yet deep down well known existence in a life simplified and enjoyable to the utmost levels.

If we think backward, trying to recall happiest moments of our lives, probably, among inevitable downsides of growing, our cherishes memories where when we felt free and without worries, in our childhood.

There are two reasons (well, three - we were young too:)) for this state of blissfulness: our lives (needs) were simple as well as our thoughts.

Then, let us make a thesis - if above stated has worked for us, how we can - with few decades more on our backs - enter consciously again into that state of mind and body?

We should consciously, nice and easy, simplify our daily life, equal our daily habits.

Let explore some ideas along our journey, to boldly go where we once were happy and free.

In the following pages we will go through human daily activities and explore ideas for making them simple and us happier.

Daily living which piles up creating our daily habits:

1. Practical living

Basic human need for a shelter. When thinking to purchase a new home, please do bear in mind that we need to make our life simpler than it is currently. This thought will be our guidance when heavy decisions will step in front of us. 

Example: a baby is coming to a world. Instead of current one bedroom apartment, we would optimally seek a new two bedroom apartment (near kindergarten and schools in order to minimize commuting), not a huge fancy Penthouse or a big house with a huge green yard. It can be easily also a smaller house with a nice green yard, which will not take more than 1 hour to mown the grass or pay extra maintenance.

2. Body and Mind workouts

Gym nowadays is a mess due to the pandemic times. Our body is our sacred temple, the only and last home we have on this planet. Cherish and take care of it, and it will serve you well.

Example: 

Body - Callisthenic exercises might be boring after a certain amount of time, unless we constantly change the environment, not to be bored. And so we save on memberships too. Basic exercises are the simplest, hit all muscle groups and you have extra time. "Sacred six" are: push-ups, pull-ups, jumping squats or Romanian squats, deadlifts or back rows, military presses or pike push-ups and crunches or leg lifts. For those who always want more: add dips. And do not forget nice and easy warm-ups as well as cool downs stretches.

Mind - while reading helps me a lot, especially reading real, paper books (we shall come to the issue paper vs. digital later), still in a need to embrace regular daily meditation practice. Guess up to 10 minutes of simply sitting and observing anything real (air, body sensations, sounds), while letting thoughts to come and go (imagining them landing on leaves floating in a river and streaming away, effortlesly), shall suffice to clear my mind and settle the grounding.

3. Financial pillars

We all desire the passive income, a steady constant cashflow on our account, which will cover all our needs, without or with minimal effort from our side. How to achieve it? Best practice and wisdom found everywhere points out few directions to follow: concentrate effort on max. 3-5 levels, diversify, automate, scale if possible. 

Example: Set up 4 main plans to work on - Real estate for short rental / Small online business to work remotely on / Dividend stock portfolio. Plan to achieve desired annual income from these 3 financial pillars. Set realistic goals for each of there three plans and steps-to do tasks for achieving the target. With this, we have focus, diversification, automation and scalability.

Written by Raido Simson / Earth, winter 2021

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Raido Simson worked in a multinational corporation and private companies for many years before starting Simple.Minimal.Stoic Blog, a personal health & wealth website. He received a B.A. in Economics, currently actively simplifying his personal and business life.