Browsing Tag

minimalist

Swoots are for Snoots

Success… should mean never having to wear a suit. I hate suits, they are uncomfortable, expensive, impractical and wearing a tie is just plain horrible.

Why should success in a business-world be determined by what we wear? Why should our success be determined by likes, looks, or how much money we make? Maybe our success should be determined by our happiness, the value that one can get and give out of our day jobs. You could be earning millions, but still not be happy or find yourself fulfilled and satisfied with your job.
Maybe a dollar sign isn’t what drives you to do what you do, maybe seeing a smile on someone’s face is. We all do the nine to five grind because it is comfortable and familiar.

Are people too caught up in producing a brand that they have forgotten about identity? Have we forgotten what a human touch is? There is too much in the world now that has a lack of face, a lack of humanity to it. It’s a sterile and uncomfortable environment.

“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” – Horace Mann

Don’t be ashamed to be selfless and do something that makes you happy. If sitting in front of the white backlight of a computer screen no longer makes you happy, then change the things around you. People sacrifice doing what makes them happy to do what they think is right. That job as an accountant might pay well, but you’re busy dreaming about building things in your shed out of timber and getting paid to do it. The smells of the hardwoods, the oils and machinery, every time you cut into the grains and ready to create your next piece that lasts a lifetime. Now back to the reality of that co-worker who marinated in cologne this morning, people demanding you like you have a clone so you can be in two places at once. It’s nice being in demand, but not too unrealistic expectations. This is not Star Wars and this is not Attack of the Clones, there is only one of us.

“When I was five years old, my Mom told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wrote down “happy”. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life.” [-]

With an impending career change on the horizon, the motivation behind it comes from personal experience. I no longer want to meet peoples unrealistic demands, but I’d rather do something I enjoy that has a positive impact on those I want to work with. I want to make people smile when they feel like they are helping the greater good, and reaching their full potential. It’s my own personal agenda, to help everyone reduce today’s footprint for tomorrows little feet.

The whole idea of a career change is to cultivate a career around my wants and needs of a lifestyle. The wants of a career to what and who I deal with, as well as the needs to be flexible for my health and working with like-minded passionate people. At the end of it, I’ll feel happy when I can work contently in a location that does not have the interruptions of the busy city, nine to five grind. Somewhere I can work quietly amongst the green scenery.  I prefer the quiet over chaos, I want my own time and not to be everyone else’s time. The perfect fit, not the perfect result.

September 17, 2017 by

Minimalism, for art thou savior!

Dear Friends, Do you have a moment to talk about Minimalism?

Dear Friends,

I love you. I’m picky with my friends. I’m picky about who I spend my time, and my efforts on. Is it from getting old and becoming wise? From the repeated disappointment that comes from the expectations placed on one another? You are my friends, you are a place I can bury my thoughts, my insecurities, to vent when I have a bad day, to seek advice from when I need it.

You all do the same, to vent, to ask advice, to bury your thoughts and insecurities. You are all capable of doing much more, you are in control of your life. If there is something that no longer makes you happy or suits its purpose, change it. It may feel like you have a lot at stake, but the fear of what is on the other side is holding you back. The “what if’s”. Change it anyway. Only until you make a change will you see the benefits after, regardless of the risk.

“If you no longer go for a gap which exists you are no longer a racing driver” – Ayrton Senna

My friends, do you have a moment to talk about minimalism?

Do you ever feel weighed down? And I’m not talking about the big things, the small things, the ones that each time something happens it adds a little bit more to the pile. More weight, more problems (Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems). It will keep adding and adding until eventually, you break. The straw that broke the Camels back.

Life is complicated, life is stressful. But it doesn’t have to be, you’re allowed to make it simple. You are allowed to have a simple, loving, fulfilling life. You are allowed to simplify everything. This includes your friends, family, work, and your commitments. You are allowed to say no.

Minimalism has its benefits, and I’m not going to go all ‘preachy, preachy’ praise minimalism, on you. We, as humans, are only equipped to handle so much, and some things we are not able to handle at all. Simplify a number of aspects of your life that you need to manage and then learn ways to manage the aspects you can’t. You will have extra time to do so, it’s time to start investing in yourself and your well-being. Invest in your growth, and make investments with your time. Don’t waste the time on people who do not help you grow, or stomp on your voice.

People are a great stressor in life, regardless of who a person is to you. There are always complications regardless of the type of relationship. If the relationship is no longer making you happy, reassess if it is right for you and then remember. You do have a voice.

 

August 20, 2017 by

Consumption Conshmumption

While I enjoy the consumption of things like coffee and endless hours of test match cricket. I’m not so fond of consumption of material possessions, or maybe the act of consumption.

Recently my Dad asked me about going overseas to see relatives, neither he or I have met from my Grandfathers side. Dad is pushing 70, so I see it as an opportunity to travel but also give him some assistance in being on the first plane in 30 years or so.

But when you’re asked if you want to go to Scotland, the first thing that comes to mind is “fuck, it’s gonna be cold”, and rightly true. To put this in perspective, I’ve been trimming down my clothes slowly. I’d rather have a few good items that do it well, than a lot that I might use occasionally. A jacket is one I’ve struggled with, I’ve thrown out several in the process that no longer fit, never wore or don’t like and I’m left with mainly hoodies. I went and bought a cheap jacket for $25 as it was Winter, and my previous one was broken. I needed to not be wet or cold given I’m in and out the car a lot. It was ok, but not particularly warm. I start searching and find a good quality jacket that will do all of the above. Warm, waterproof, durable. Like any jacket should be, and also more expensive but I’ll consider it a long term investment. While continuing my search for a jacket Mrs.E find me one that’s good on sale, fantastic! Warm, comfy, looks good and fits nicely.
But I still look for a jacket that’s a bit more suiting. I find another jacket on sale cheaply while looking for jeans and pick that up, I’m not sure why and now it feels like useless consumption. It fitted when I tried it on, but wasn’t the greatest fit when I started wearing it and needing to do something in it. Not everyone is built the same.

The disappointing thing was during this time I was also making a lot of purchases, I’m not entirely sure how necessary they were. But I was on a roll with the trigger finger and watching my bank balance deplete quicker than an Aus Post overnight express delivery. A shower caddy for the (little) stuff I have in my shower, my justification? Picking them off the floor with a dodgy back and a chronic illness starts to get a bit tiring. I’ve noticed it more going off my medication lately. My choice was to buy something a little more earth-friendly, so I got one made of Bamboo.

A new dish rack for when I wash my dishes, the old one is funky and falling apart and leaves crap on the sink. So I got one made of bamboo. I bought first aid kits as I keep cutting myself lately and running upstairs for a band-aid while bleeding isn’t a great idea in a rental. A second to go in the office, because I cut myself at work. More books as gifts, tea infusers so I stop using tea bags and also other people I know. Random gifts for shits and giggles. I also bought a vintage cricket bat, which well… I like looking at them. Cricket is something I’ve always valued.

I’m still trudging my way through The Minimalists book, and I’m up to a part about where Joshua got to a point where he stopped buying things and tried to see how he lived without them. Which I think maybe is something I need to try. Less buying, and more selling of the crap I don’t use around the house (I also refurb old PC’s from work and sell them off and they are everywhere at the moment). I think long term, I need to buy less, offload shit, and reassess my funds. I’ve dipped into my savings account too much lately for purchases, and also some that have come back to bite me in the backside (like a laptop that was gutless). I’ll need to be more thoughtful with my choices for purchases, I guess I “fell off the wagon” when it came to it recently.

Maybe I’ll give that no purchase thing a go for a while… except for coffee.

August 20, 2017 by

Death of Community Sport

One thing I’ve aimed to do is to make more time for friends, not just when I need friends but also when it sounds like they need it too. Sometimes it can be a vent about life’s frustrations or to switch off and have a conversation that isn’t related to work.

During one of my regular activities with a mate involving a few cheap pints on a Thursday evening, we drifted into our usual conversation on a passionate topic. The game of cricket. But before I bore you like a mid 90’s 5-day test match. Hang around and read on.

We both have a love for the game of Cricket, it’s a gentlemen’s game that requires patience and also timing. It also requires a large space to be played. Recently I’ve been working on a proposal with the council of where my cricket team resides about making use of their space and getting a second cricket pitch installed. After much lengthy discussion on the who, what, where and when. The conversation drifted into the use of community spaces.

Given he works in property, he’s noticed that a lot of new housing developments are designed to fit as many houses in one space. Tightly packed like sardines in a tin. Rack em and stack em, but with not a lot available other than a local shopping centre and closely located small park.

Part of Australians culture is their love for sport from a small age, and we have a tendency to take the land we have for granted by building out and not up. Children will take interest in footy and cricket and want to be like their heroes. But now with recent developments packing as many houses in to get as much money as they can, they’ve neglected to have any shared community space for sports. This means as the population grows, the demand for already existing clubs will grow. I know for a fact the association that runs our cricket competition already struggles to find enough grounds and we’ve seen some turned into synthetic soccer pitches. There isn’t much left for the good old fashioned game of cricket played on turf or concrete pitches across a vast space of real grass.

If more and more developments are going to take place with a lack of open space for any local community sport, are we going to see it die out? Not only will we see sports players become scarce, we will see an incline in obesity and lack of outside activities for communities. Which is why I also think we have to protect the large open community spaces we do have, make use of them and do everything to keep them. We are currently seeing this with the surrounding areas of Glenside Hospital. A positive that it creates jobs and housing close to the city which is what people want, but we sacrifice the open space that was used by the community and also a lot of the trees in the area. Unfortunately, we are never going to end up in a perfect or reasonable world. Given most of these types of developments are run through the wheeling and dealing of the government and large companies that can line their pockets, we won’t see any extra trees planted for the ones they cut down, or spaces created for sporting. Just small community parks, Glenside is an exception given that it’s so close to the surrounding parklands of Adelaide.

No one wants a death of community sport, but it’s creeping up on us.

July 30, 2017 by

Stretched thin

My original plan or expectation was to write at least one article a month, and now I’ve hit a speed bump only a few months in. A lack of time and being ‘stretched thin”. So to keep up with the expectation of myself to do one post per month I thought I’d write about why I haven’t had the time and also reflect on it.

The end of financial year for work certainly increases the workload for myself, while most people would find themselves busy. They may not reflect on the consequences or a “snowball effect” of being too busy. While I’m busy keeping up with the demands and expectations of clients at work, of which can also be unrealistic and unthoughtful at times. It spills out into my personal life, the house becomes a mess, things don’t get done. The dishes and washing piles up or the clean ones sit around and don’t get put away. General cleaning doesn’t get done. Clutter starts to build up on things you haven’t dealt with, the physical health is already affected and then the mental one of all the things you need to do creeps in, and starts to stress you out. Then the stress, in turn, starts to affect you physically. The majority of my week nights and weekends have been spent finishing up small bits of work to meet others expectations or resting because I have nothing left in the tank to continue. It is also my responsibility to manage these things, and also speak out when I need to with other co-workers.

It’s upon this reflection I wonder if I should look at a career change to suit my own needs and wants for the future, something that I can achieve a manageable work and life balance, that’s not going to stress or exhaust me. There’s also continued reflection that looking after myself, on my own is becoming a struggle, and it’s not something someone in their mid 30’s wants to start to deal with or think about at an early age in the life span. When work gets so busy it affects everything around it, my health and the people around me. Of which I don’t want my illness to affect anyone.

So I guess this post is to meet that expectation of a post a month, even though there’s no real content behind it. Other than to reflect that I’ve stretched myself too thin.

July 21, 2017 by

Want not, waste not

As I’ve progressed to minimalise through my lifestyle, not just my possessions. I’ve seen a lot of waste. I’ve always seen waste and I try my best to reduce it where I can.

Originally my job of I.T. technician by day (and Batman by night), I’d see so many computers that would get tossed, and a lot of them still in working condition of some sort. While they still go to e-recycling, there is still some use for other computers that might be old. But, for every old computer I see go to recycling, I also see a new PC installed. They come in a box, wrapped in plastic, padded with foam which doesn’t degrade, and in Australia can’t go into recycling either.

Back around 2008, Hewlett-Packard released a laptop that came with 97% less packaging as a challenge from Wal-mart and Dell has a half decent recycling program with their packaging before it even makes it to your home. HP’s packaging never really took off, which is a bit of a shame. I’ve noticed every cable at work for a monitor is excessively packaged, even the old analogue style cables which we no longer use and toss into recycling. Plastic cables on each end with foam padding, rubber bands and cable ties to hold it all together neatly. Given the cables cost no more than a dollar it’s not going to break the bank if they send another every now and then.

Many Australians would have seen a tv show recently called the War on Waste. While a lot of this I already had good knowledge of, it was still opening my eyes to better ways to handle my waste, but also limit it by being more thoughtful with my consumption and purchases. If I buy something now I think about where it’s going to end up.

There’s also a lot of supermarkets pushing the perfect looking product. Your fruits and vegetables, meats and dairy. Leading to a lot of waste at the farmer’s end, when it should be on our shelves or in the hands of charities like Food Bank who make use of it for the needy.
I hadn’t finished watching the three-part series yet. But I’m sure it will bring more to the front of my mind.

I already try to eliminate what goes into my general waste, anything that’s biodegradable was going in will now go into recycling or composting (pending my purchase for a compost bin and worms).

In the past, I’ve read articles which have given me more thought into my waste but hadn’t actioned them so much. But like I’ve said before “It’s a process”. The inventor of the coffee capsule (K-Cups), noted for its convenience, consistency and cleanliness. But makes shitty coffee. Went on to say later in life he regretted the invention because of the landfill with plastic it created, billions of plastic pods that aren’t biodegradable and are killing our planet.

Another article I read was about a woman who lived a zero-waste lifestyle and was able to fit a year of her general waste into a mason jar. Recycled materials were low, food scraps were composted. It takes some serious thought and commitment, and I can bet it was a long process to get to that point too.

It’s one process to sort your recycling and compost your food scraps, but have you thought as to where your general waste is going? If it’s going to the right places?

At the moment, this is just a solution to an already existing problem. But I think we also need prevention, but fewer things in plastic, or is there an alternative to using plastic like recycled paper bags or no plastic at all?

My brain kept ticking over with these thoughts, which is funny as it rarely doesn’t tick over at all. But I had more after watching Mission Blue on Netflix. The Coral Sea is dying due to “bleaching” caused by global warming, and recently the Great Barrier Reef was declared irreparable. In the 1970’s there was one oil rig off the Gulf of Mexico. There are now over 30,000, our need for oil to make fuel and other by-products are seeing us suck the planet dry of every resource we can get, and resources are limited. We all saw what happened with that big oil leak didn’t week? A nice big ol’ clusterfuck that was. Big enough to get Mark Wahlberg in on it.

Most of the plastic found in the ocean would break down over time, but never degrade and become natural matter again. It will end up at the bottom of the ocean, floating in the water, or ingested by our marine life. Including the many fish we consume every year, that’s right. You’re eating that coke bottle you tossed out the car window in 1998. You wouldn’t eat plastic, so why leave it around to go into our waters and harm marine life?

Having seen all this, I’m looking at ways to reduce the amount of waste that goes into my house, but also the amount that comes in as well. I’m intending to be more thoughtful at the source. Fewer plastics and waste in my kitchen, and my bathroom. But also fewer chemicals used to clean kitchens, bathrooms and laundries, and fewer processed foods and packaging into my refrigerator and my body.

I now have a commitment to look at ways of reducing waste, both in and out of the house. Using or buying less that will end up as waste, to be more sustainable and nicer on the environment. I don’t see this as a hard task, just committing, researching and staying focused.

I guess towards the end of the year I’ll update on the progress and see if I got anywhere with my findings. Right, I’m off to Bunnings for a snag and a compost bin.

July 2, 2017 by

Junk Drunk Minimalist

I hate IKEA. There I said it. Well, maybe I have a weak spot for the dollar hot dogs.

But I hate IKEA, hate is probably a strong word. Ikea is a heaven for those who like a well organised and decluttered home (Sorry Rebecca!). But I dislike IKEA along with a lot of other retailers.

Each time a catalogue comes out it will contain the latest in fashion and home décor trends. Destined to be donated, sold, given away and become landfill before you’ve even got it out of the packaging. It is marketing driven consumerism at its finest, exploiting a person’s needs to feel accepted by others.

I wonder just how much of the glorified paper mache made at IKEA goes into landfill each year? Either broken or just out of fashion for the years or seasons trends. The same for clothing, did you know the average American throws out 30 kilograms of clothing into landfill each year? That pans out to 14 million tonnes of clothing waste.

As I look around my house, I can see the ethical choices I’ve made. I don’t “buy” things anymore. I “rescue” them, those that were destined to be landfill. As I pen this article to paper, on a bureau desk I bought off eBay for 30 dollars. Dry, brittle and out of shape. It was a process, I slowly brought it back to life as a functional piece of furniture. But also something nice to look at and value its journey, to know it didn’t become landfill, scrapped timber or burnt because it’s old. My three-seater and two recliner couch, Gumtree, and the same for my bookcase and much more other things around my house.

Last year my IKEA tallboy bit the dust, the bottoms fell through, the drawers wouldn’t come out. A few hundred dollars spent on something with a limited lifespan. Destined to become a freebie on the curb. I spent a bit of time looking around on Gumtree for solid timber tallboys, they were all close to what I wanted but still didn’t appeal to me. A little bit impractical here and there or a bit over the budget.

Luckily, a long time mate from high school was firing up a new business making furniture again. We both had the same set of morals on waste, especially when it came to timber. So I set him to work with a short design brief, replicate my great grandmother’s tallboy. The now 110-year-old French polish solid timber tallboy had outseen two world wars, multiple countries and countless moves. A few weeks later, a tallboy made from Oregon was ready for me. The timber sourced from an 80-year-old house demolished in the Adelaide Hills, with exposed dovetail joints and handcrafted handles from recycled steel. His signature finish, and a stunning piece of furniture.

Why am I a junk drunk minimalist though? I just don’t like waste. Why send an old computer to landfill or e-recycling because it doesn’t do what you want to anymore? I’m sure that old clunker can be a great learning tool for a child, or for grandparents wanting to get on the internet.
Old clothes or furniture, anything can be sold or donated, given away or re-purposed. It doesn’t have to end up in landfill. Getting rid of stuff is easy, it’s making a conscious choice about the next purchase is where the hard stuff starts. Buy something that won’t break, buy something that won’t become landfill or out of fashion.

Have you ever seen American Pickers? A couple of guys going through the back roads of America. Saving things before they rust or become landfill. I love old stuff, it’s got a story, it’s had an adventure. It’s been loved, appreciated and admired. Save something like that and it can have that adventure all over again. American Pickers coined the phrase “junk drunk”, getting drunk over all the fantastic stuff you can find.

Nothing in my house really matches, it’s not a bright white, clean “minimalist interior design” environment. It is lived in, about the only bright white things are my washer and dryer. But I only have the necessities so that I can live comfortably. My house is not a minimalist design, but of minimalist intentions. To live comfortably, with enough.

June 18, 2017 by

Chronically Minimalist

“Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labours of life reduce themselves.” – Edwin Way Teale

The quote above couldn’t ring true anymore as I write this post.

I’ve always had some fascination with minimalism, and with minimalism you’ll find different interpretations. Minimalist interior design, advertising and graphic design, architecture, and fashion design.

If you look at minimalist interior design, you’ll see a lot of white and not much else. But minimalism isn’t about having nothing, it may be for those “extremists” but for most people it’s about having enough, not less. Valuing the things you have, rather than things that are of value. Make sense? Good.

I don’t call myself a minimalist yet, maybe “practising minimalist”. I have a lot to learn and still a long way to go. In the movie Moneyball, Brad Pitt plays a character who says a line ‘it’s a process, it’s a process, it’s a process”, and that to me is what minimalism is. It’s not something that will happen overnight. To me, minimalism is about valuing the things you have, and “reducing the needless wants of life”.

“Being” a minimalist became more of forethought during 2016 when I was diagnosed with a chronic illness, called Fibromyalgia (call this a “coming out” party for a raging illness). While I’d already begun on my journey to having less, it fell into place more with a life changing diagnosis. Fibromyalgia is a chronic illness of widespread muscle and joint pain, accompanied with fatigue, cognitive disturbance and responses to emotions. This is the pain pathways in the brain saying “everything hurts”, it’s also a lengthy diagnosis and not found by a simple blood test, or X-ray.

During the time it took for a diagnosis (approx. 2 years), I continued that process of minimising. I culled my wardrobe, books, kitchen utensils, and in my cupboard. Seriously, why do I need 25 coffee cups?

As I’ve slowly got myself to a stage where I don’t have a lot of possessions (I’m not an extremist though). I find I make less mess, I spend less time cleaning. I spend less time doing those time-consuming chores when we all want to be reading a book and having a cup of coffee. Things are organised, I can find what I’m looking for, and I don’t lose things either.

Everything I now have, I value. I still have the same creature comforts as any house will have. But what do you do with all that excess stuff though? Recycle, donate, give it away, sell it. Use the money and take yourself on a holiday!

Dedicate some time now to it, and you’ll have more time do doing things you want to do rather than need or must do. For me, this expends an already limited energy supply. So, if I spend less time cleaning and doing all those chores, I won’t need to worry about them so much when I have a flare-up with my illness.

Have you ever noticed when your house is clean and tidy, your mind is at ease? You’re not distracted by anything you need to do. Like the vacuuming or the dishes, washing the clothes or seeing the light hit the dust on a shelf.

You’ll find your headspace is well improved and you’ll be more productive.

Minimalism, give it a try. You might just like it.

June 1, 2017 by

A New Hope

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I had several other blogs. Blogs that ended up dormant and never used. Maybe third time is a charm?

My other blogs had failed, they were never content driven or had much to keep myself motivated. The past few years I’ve let domain names expire, closed old blogs off and then left it to do nothing.

I’m more motivated now with a little more time on my hands. I got myself a new blog as I’d been speaking to Rebecca at Clearspace about doing some posts on Minimalism, my Chronic Illness and how they’ve kind of meshed together. So I thought I’d repost them here, and also anything else I feel like talking about. We’ve also talked about a podcast at some stage, she was wanting someone obnoxious and that’s probably right up my alley.

I’ve got quite a few things already done, stashed away in a Word document and post them up eventually. There will be no post schedules, or expectations. Just posting what I want when I want, I have more of a process though and that’s to write out a post on paper with pen before I put it into a Word document, it creates distraction free writing.

So here’s to a new adventure.

May 12, 2017 by