Tuesday, October 25, 2016

WTA Finals and thoughts


Today was the first time that I have attended a professional tennis match live. I was technically there on business, but there were many thoughts I had. The game reminded me of the fencing matches I saw at the Southeast Asian Games in Singapore - the same ones I sat in feeling lost and confused about life a year or two ago. I remember sitting in the benches and texting my fencing Coach about what I should do about life...  I'll have to go back to that chat and do a little reading.

Many thoughts tonight.

Monday, October 24, 2016

Letting go of paper memories and dreams

This minimalism project has become so much of a heart issue...and so much earlier than I thought it would.

I spent this past week on books and papers.

It was a grueling task trying to get through all the memories and plans that I had stashed away over these years. After many days of going through hundreds of papers documenting many seasons of my life... decluttering meant that I had to choose what to keep and what to throw away - to decide which parts of my dreams I was willing to give up, and which I still wanted to keep.

I eventually gave up on a half-done psychology paper that I wrote and meant to finish for publishing with a professor in the States...but it has been put away so long, it was just time to let go. I also decided to give away all my textbooks for my Early Childhood course, most of the business notes from university days, and a large file documenting the set up of a club some 10 years ago which has grown into something beyond what I expected.

I suppose, if anything, this process has reinforced the notion that I need to now focus more on the present, and what I want to keep for the future. And to do that, I need to let go of the past.

Easier said than done though.

To be honest, I don't think I'm quite done yet - because I still held on to many "un-finished business". From my project for rural entrepreneurship for India, to a couple of old marketable ideas, to my family tree project, to the most random of books in fashion and embroidery... there still is a whole list of "interests" and "projects" that I chose to keep around. I guess it wasn't so easy to let things go as easily and thoroughly as I really should (as according to the "rules" of Marie Kondo).

It's already the start of the new week now and I'm hoping this process has brought some lasting peace and focus that I so need.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Happy in the moment.

I've been up since 4am, but considering that I must have slept at about midnight, I'm pretty happy that I was able to wake up so early. I pretty much prayed that God would wake me up so that I could get to my bakery today, but I surprised myself by choosing not to go. I chose instead to stay in bed, did some quiet time, listened to some minimalism videos and asked myself what I wanted to do with my life.

I stayed there for a good hour and a half or so. I eventually got up, showered and now am sitting down with a nice cup of tea and simply enjoying my little space in life now as the smells of the cool early morning rain wafts through the house.

For the past few weeks I've been working on my minimalism project. I kinda mashed a couple of minimalism and decluttering concepts together - mainly that of the 4-box method, the Konmari method, as well as the minimalism challenge of trying to get down to (hopefully) 300 things. But I've targeted first the goals of establishing exactly how many things I have and getting it down to 700 first. I'm still a little nervous about the higher 700-item target - considering that I already have slightly over a hundred items of clothing (not including all my accessories and shoes!).

I've started on clearing out my administrative life about a week back and it has been going great so far. I've finally sorted out most of my most important files of finances and insurance that were bothering me and I just have that of clearing through my personal portfolio and some other random papers I've kept since my university days. I need to go through books as well. I'll prolly get that done by the end of this week.

Interestingly, what this journey has done so far has been more uncomfortable than not. I've been challenged to look at areas of myself that I've disliked - including some kind of irrational fear of finishing or completing things... which perhaps is linked to other irrational fears I have... but that's something I think I'll have to dig deeper and figure out over time. It's a little complicated because I will think of weird things like how "complete" is "complete"? Which, perhaps sounds randomly philosophical, but it makes a little more sense when I talk about my embroidery project...or any art form. What's to say that a work is really "complete"? Only the artist knows, right? But how about the perfectionist artist? It's probably rare for them to ever say that any of their pieces are "completed".

This is a lesson about "letting go" isn't it? :)

Okay, enough thoughts for the morning. :) I shall enjoy another half an hour of it simply sitting with some of my other files and planning what tonight's organization project is going to be.

This year's motto: Simplify to Clarify.

It's good to say that I'm happy right now, even if just for this simple, quiet, moment.