In pursuit of less.
As a culture, we’re pretty obsessed with MORE. More food. More friends (or, ahem, more followers). Doing more work so we can get more things. Filling our closets to the brim, jamming up our inboxes with sale emails, packing our days with more than we can actually get done, setting more goals without thinking about why, even padding our calendars with friendships that are more filler than fun. We are full steam ahead in pursuit of more.
And to be fair, it’s easy to get caught up in the momentum of more. That’s the dream we’ve been sold. It’s marketed to us every day. More, more more. We’re accumulation ninjas, trained in excess, experts at avoiding emptiness. Because if we keep filling up our bellies and our closets and our calendars, we don’t have to actually feel what emptiness feels like.
And emptiness can feel like uncertainty, vulnerability, or even loneliness. Emptiness asks us tough questions. Like, “What do you really, really want?” And that’s hard to answer because in becoming expert consumers and accumulaters, we’ve numbed our sense of discernment. We’ve lost the ability to define what our style is, what we’re hungry for, what kind of friends we want, or what we desire. We can’t decide what we actually want or need.
But maybe what we really need is… LESS. The truth is that less can feel like freedom, focus and clarity. There is nothing to distract, muddy or cover over the essence of you, your feelings, your desires, your truth, or your style.
So what if we spent a little time untangling ourselves from the web of excess, pulling out the weeds so there is more room for the things we truly love to take root and bloom? Clarifying and intentionally cultivating.
I’m not saying go live in an ashram. I‘m saying, define your desires and let your desires define your choices. And that starts with flinging open the doors, giving up on MORE and going in pursuit of LESS.
