Practising healthy minimalism is possible by focusing on these four aspects related to our life. I believe by implementing these points below, it would surely improve our life in general. And we have been doing all these to get a calmer and peaceful life as a little family.
Constructive People
In order to be mentally healthy, we need to surround ourselves with as many constructive people as possible. Therefore at the initial stage, it is important to pick carefully with who we want to make friends with. Because the influences it creates would have a ripple effect on our future life. Sometimes we are just unlucky enough to ‘read’ someone. And then we allow this ‘someone’ to enter from a tiny hole into our life. This is when it starts. If this ‘someone‘ has a capacity to create problems in the future, we are risking our health through deconstructive energy this ‘someone’ possesses. Make a lot of friends, please. But be sure it is a light friendship that has no obligatory of certain commitments. Be solid only with the best.
Whiff Off Toxins
I knew from a long time ago that I subconsciously dislike sitting next to the ‘smokers’. I have found it is difficult for me to befriend with smokers. Logically, not only it is making my skin dryer and aging prematurely contacting with the smoke they produce, but most importantly how could I enjoy talking while sucking the toxins? Even more, once we have a baby. Selecting a place to live or to travel is according to this rule for us as a family. We will surely avoid ‘the suckers heaven‘ destination to travel to.
Gadget Overload
I have never known that I could be addicted to a mobile game. My Mom introduced me to ‘Candy Crush Saga‘ when she came here over a year ago. I was disliking it when she was busy playing with her phone. I felt pity that she came here from miles away supposedly to enjoy playing with her granddaughter or at least to chit-chat with me instead. This Candy Crush became part of our family. Aaand recently, I installed this game just to ‘feel alive‘. So, I have been gaming for a few days. I start to feel this game is all over me. It is taking away my precious time to write, to tea-time with Samuel, to play with Axelle, and to run the business. It is not healthy. Today I commit to removing this game from the phone!
Overwhelming Invites
One of the reasons I reject the idea of living in Indonesia is because of this. This country has a strong cultural value which is somehow nice and I am proud of that. Yet on the other side of the coin, there is a string inside this cultural thing that attached to the way we live the life. Whereas this ‘string’ cannot be pulled out with ease. In a country with a ‘thick’ cultural string, everybody knows everybody. Because of this, one person can get an abundance of invitations to a variety of events. Every week one can spend the time either to attend a wedding, a circumcision event, a 7-month pregnancy event, a traditional ceremony for a baby to touch their feet down the ground for the first time aka Upacara Turun Tanah, or something else as described in the invite letter. The list goes on and unstoppable. And to top it off, another extra time needs to be wasted to hunt for the gifts prior coming to this multi-event.
Simply put, those above is something we can manage in life. Allowing ourselves to be with the quality of people would only result in receiving a quality of invites. Minimalist living includes discarding the unnecessary events to attend to, for the sake of our own mental health.
Image Credits: Artsy Vibes