“During a disaster your community is more important than your hoard.”
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From Stuff to Self
Words by Falak Zaffer Ghatala
Somewhere between “loving people and using things,” a phrase I learned listening to Joshua Field Millburn, I’ve ended up with a lot of things by super loving people.
My journey of “stuff” began in 1996, when my parents and I moved from India to America. We travelled over two continents with over 13 large suitcases worth of stuff. For a family of five moving from a different country, it doesn’t sound like a lot, but from then on we’ve only accumulated more.
Following my marriage, in 2007, my parents decided to move back to India—leaving me with a bunch of family heirlooms passed on through generations, continents, countries, states, and now cities to follow me around. Since then, I’ve moved 9 times in 13 years, carrying each of these heirlooms in bubble-wrapped, packed boxes with me. I recently moved into a house, and now those boxes are neatly lined up in our basement. I would need to buy or build something to showcase the items, but my husband and I have been very conservative in our spending and have been decorating with a purpose.
My family often bombards us for our choice of not buying a dinning table, even a year after our move; but we have let those voices drown out a bit. We are still in search of the table that both serves our purpose and brings us joy in the long term. So for now we reserve our dinning room space as our prayer and meditation area—it serves us well for the time being.
Living in a South Asian family, where joint families and large gatherings are the norm, we are constantly hosting, cooking, feeding, gifting, cleaning, and repeating. Strangely, this pandemic has calmed things down for us tremendously. I have been able to focus on my space, my home, without the worry of accumulating more.
I know I’m super blessed to have so many people in my life, but honestly I’m stuck trying to find a balance. I’ve been thinking that the best way for me to move forward is to focus on my own things and my space, which is sparingly small, and hope that people will follow suit.
I’ve realized that I have always spent conservatively and have never truly felt pulled into consumerism; therefore, I find simple living easy to do. But I can also see that it may be harder for others. Mindfulness and intentionality cannot be forced. They can come only when we appreciate the value of nothingness, the value of self over stuff.
Micro-Business:
The Freedom of Staying Small
Words by Carl Phillips
Our culture often has a strange way of measuring success. This is particularly true in business pursuits.
Too often the focus is on growth for the sake of growth. This approach leads to talk of “scaling up,” “gaining more market share,” and eventually “flipping companies.” It can also lead to all sorts of questionable behaviour and code of conduct.
To my mind, this is a limited perspective.
Is continually growing our business leading to less headache, more health, and more work/life balance for both business leaders and employees?
Does working more hours to earn more money mean we get more quality time with our loved ones?
Does all this striving for more and more make us feel like our best self? Does it truly feel “successful”?
Is spreading our effort wide leading to a better product for our current customers?
I’ve run my own business for a decade now. I have zero employees—it’s a micro-business of one. I have a simple business model and I am always looking for ways to make that simpler. The fewer moving parts my business has, the better. The more I can focus on what I do well, the better the results for the customer—the more successful I feel.
The original reason for me starting my company was the ability to choose how my life ran—I wanted more freedom and flexibility in how I worked. I wanted a choice in what type of customers I worked with. My wife and I love to travel, so I also wanted the ability to be able to pick up, and take three months off, travelling some years (as we have done).
I didn’t want the pressure of taking on employees and having to keep cashflow moving through the business, so people could pay their mortgages. I didn’t want the hassle of having to work for customers that were not a good fit for me. I didn’t want to be limited to doing things one set way.
Many of these reasons are the same reasons I continue to run my micro-business today. These are metrics of success that matter to me. Freedom, flexibility, and the ability to choose. Yes, I need to pay the bills (and for travels), but enough can be enough.
More is not always better. Growth is not always positive. There is a point of diminished returns.
Redefine your own vision of success. Rediscover the power and freedom in staying small.
A Little More of Less
A few other articles we think you might enjoy…
→ You Cannot Fix Anything by Joshua Fields Millburn
→ How Minimalism Saved My Life by Kara Stevens
→ The Guilt of Not Working More by Leo Babauta
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