Delete first.

This year, I’ve come to appreciate the art of deletion.

Deleting the number of projects I work on, the unrealistic expectations I have, the amount of people I spend time with, etcetera.

Michelangelo, history’s most revered sculptor, was one of the greatest proponents of this philosophy.

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. -Michelangelo

When everyone just saw a 20-foot slab of marble in front of them, Michelangelo saw the Statue of David.

In other words, Michelangelo understood that like sculpting, most of what we want in life is already in front of us.
We just need to get all the bullshit out of the way.

From the day we’re born, we acquire a lot of crap as we’re growing up. We’re ‘taught’ how we should act by our friends, what we should believe by our family, or how our bodies should look by the media.

By the time we’re ready to take on the world at 21, 25, 30 years old, we’re left with a bunch of baggage. Most of which is negative.

Yet, we’re still inundated by self-help gurus or Instagram models that make us think: “I’m missing something that I have to add to my life.”

When in reality, there’s probably something you have to let go of.

Think about this in your own life.

Maybe you have unrealistic expectations of who society wants you to be.
Maybe you’re keeping people in your life that aren’t your real friends, even though they seem like they are.
Or maybe you’re holding on to a shitty job, because the steady paycheck is an excuse to not go for what you really want.

I’m nowhere near perfect at this, nor do I expect to be in my lifetime. But I do know this.

The result of letting go is that it creates room in your life for something better.

So before you add something to your life. Delete first.