Why I’m Deciding To Make My World Smaller
In pursuit of a gentler, less overwhelming life
The older I get the more I sense a speed to life. Life seems louder, more expansive and overwhelming with each passing year. It’s a jolt to my heart and nerves, just making it through each day. My life has become more harsh, and it’s jarring. No matter how much I plan, list, organise, and optimize, I can’t keep up with everything.
As one who can easily fall into the pit of overthinking and overanalysing, I’ve been recently reflecting on ways to make my life more simple.
One of the ways I've come up with is to make my world smaller. What do I mean by this? I mean shrinking my experiences, communication, commitments, and the number of things or projects I give a damn about.
I want to care less. I’d like to devote less of my mental and emotional energy to different areas. I want to care for and actively pursue a few creative endeavours at a time. I want to nurture fewer friendships. Focusing instead on the quality of friendships, rather than having a vast network of friends, I simply can’t keep up with.
Because the thing is people come with birthdays, social plans, expectations and a whole lot of drama. So I’m choosing my friends wisely these days, I simply need a way to tone down the drama and emotional noise in my life.
I also want to limit my number of intellectual and creative pursuits. To have more energy and mental wriggle room, to allow me to thrive whilst doing fewer things.
I don’t care for any of the advertising or celebrity gossip others talk about. Most of this nonsense doesn’t provide more meaning or happiness in my life, so why bother?
In many ways, I want to focus less on global issues that I can’t have a more immediate change upon. You see I’m an empath, and sometimes it is so easy to get sucked up in feeling all the feelings. Easy to get trapped in other people’s dramas. Living this way is proving too much on my emotional and mental reservoirs. Add work, kids, and other life areas to it, and my batteries are drained by the end of the day. It’s not a pretty way to live.
I’m realising this isn’t how I want to roll in life. Who wants to be constantly exhausted?
I don’t want to be ever drowning in a vast sea of choices, cares, commitments, and communication. I want to make my world smaller, more manageable, and more sustainable.
I want a peaceful life, that isn’t full of too much sensationalism or a lot of bells and whistles.
As a society, a quiet life isn’t valued. It seems like if we don’t live a speed-filled, noisy, and thoroughly exciting life, it’s as though we’re not living.
But this is untrue. The fact is there isn’t one ideal way to live, and each of us has a right to design a life that fits our needs and personality.
I’m a highly sensitive person, and I value mindfulness and space to breathe while navigating my days. I can’t do this when bombarded by advertising, marketing messages, and being told about the million things I should give a damn about.
The fact is I want to care less. Focusing on a few interests, experiences, and explorations. The ones that I truly value. Things like writing, movement, nature connection, friendships, my kids, intentional living, creativity, poetry, spirituality, and wellness.
This doesn’t mean I don’t want to be a vessel for social change or change advocacy.
I’m a vegan, feminist, crunchy mama, and advocate for gentle parenting, so go figure about my activist inclinations. I’m too much of a fiery heart to sit aside and let injustice continue. But I have to gauge how much effort I put into such pursuits sometimes. For me to still feel a sense of balance, and groundedness in my everyday existence.
Activism is a lot of emotional labour trying to convince or explain oneself to others. Sometimes I have to distance myself from causes, to maintain my sanity and sense of serenity.
I haven't figured out a winning game plan to make this happen in its entirety, but I’m most definitely on my way. One major way I’m looking to do this is to move abroad to a more nature-connected, calmer, more low-conflict country. It’s all still in the works, and nothing is concrete. But I’d love to make this change, for my mental sanity, sense of calm, and overall life happiness.
As a child, I was encouraged, although in a toxic and subconsciously aggressive manner to go and change the world. To go big or go home. I was taught to engage in fierce competition with others. Work myself to the bone, to rise to the top.
While I played this game to an extent, it left parts of me shattered. My soul hanging on a thread, and my body is exhausted as heck. To this day, I’m working on undoing some of the toxic mental conditioning of this way of living.
I want a small life rooted in community, place, close relationships and sustainable pursuits. A smaller, slower, gentler and calmer life.
I know my lifetime is limited, I can’t devote my attention and energy to too many things and pursuits for fear of living a diluted and fuzzy life. I’d rather focus on deeper connections, local community, and soul-filled hobbies and passions.
As I age I realise the futility of trying to change the world. Or even trying to change other people. I want to live within the sphere of my immediate control, which is only in myself.
“You’ll never catalog every drop of water in the sea or wrest control from tempests, so don’t be distracted by the endless mysteries and terrors of the abyss. Instead, focus on the simple, vital task of rowing your boat.” — Phil Van Treuren
Making my world smaller allows me the space to live within the realms of my immediate control. It allows me to focus on how and where I use my energy without feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelm is a feeling that is all too familiar for a highly sensitive person like me. I’m reflecting on ways to make this life thing easier for me. Making my world smaller is one way to do so.
“The key to control is not in controlling external events, but in controlling your own mind.”-Epictetus
Making my world smaller helps me cope with life. Letting go of some of the cares and anxieties about other people's drama. Distancing myself from political and social shenanigans, and not caring about other people’s opinions of me. Makes life simpler, and more manageable.
So instead of reaching far and wide, I’m choosing to live a smaller, more quiet life. Allowing my everyday mundane experiences, and local interactions to be infused with mindfulness, and meaning as defined by me, not by society.
I might be seen by some as unambitious, but I don’t want to be stressed out, wrung out, and burned out in my pursuit of an ambitious life. I yearn deeply for a small, simple, slow, quaint, quiet and gentle life. This is a meaningful life for me.
Related writing
