Life is horribly complicated isn’t it? And lately I have noticed that if I can complicate it even more then hell’s bells that’s what I’m going to do. Why stick to one supermarket, when I could visit four in one afternoon? Why get my hair cut, blown and colored by the same hairdresser, when I can call upon the services of three different stylists? How about notebooks? What kind of crazy lady keeps all her notes in one place, when she could drive herself dividing her thoughts in to a series of pretty little books? Use one skincare range? Hair-care product line? Ecologically sound cleaning products? No Siree! A person can waste hours hopping around the mall and the internet in search of fifty different products instead! I am mad. Ste told me the other day that in the year we have been together I haven’t cooked him the same meal twice. Today I went to three different supermarkets because I wanted a certain soup from one, a completely delicious olive loaf from another and cranberry lemonade from the third. And during the weekend gone by, I discovered that I am the proud owner of twenty-three lever arch files, all in different patterns, and all eschewed in favour of the set of shiny white ones I have finally settled on. This is proof of my utter madness mais non?
Seeking solutions…
You see I spend my life looking for solutions. Often costly solutions. Solutions that take an age to source and then do not work because I am so busy looking for a better alternative I actually fail to commit to anything at all, and thus never quite allow the things I spend money to fulfill their potential in my life to make things calmer. Smoother. To make life work like clockwork and allow me to shift my mind to more needful matters…
Streamlining…
Sometimes I am in search of better. Often I am looking for variety. Occasionally (whisper it) I just want to spend money. Yep there is a range of mad reasons I flitter, and fritter (and often end up in a jitter)! Even knowing as I do that the most effective of women streamline their lives so that they take thinking about as many necessities of life completely out of the equation, still I keep on complicating things so I can keep on telling myself that life will be better when I find the perfect moisturizer, the diary that helps me keep track of my entire life, and the supermarket that stocks absolutely everything I like at a price that’s right.
Enough already, right?
It is time to change the habit of a lifetime and start committing to all manner of things. To a place to shop. To an under eye cream. To one notebook in which to keep my entire life. To a hairdresser. To a bag I use daily, instead of confusing myself by swapping bags constantly. To an organic delivery box. To a library (last week I hopped around three in one afternoon!) To a monthly meal plan so I don’t spend my life dreaming up new concoctions. To a lipstick that suits me. To a range of well-being products that don’t work against each other. To a diary ( I have just ordered a Daily Greatness Journal). To a man. (Tick!). To a box-set (recommendations please!) To a doctor (I am a revolving patient: constantly asking for a different GP in the hope of discovering one who will banish my thyroid problems!) To a pen (I am yet to find the perfect tip. The perfect blackest of black ink). To a social network. You name it I need to commit to it so that the routines and rituals I live by aren’t constant compromised by change. That the products and the services and even the people that provide them are secondary to the commitment I make to those routines and rituals, so that from my efforts to fashion days from a series of lovely habits, I can go on living a life less ordinary without imagining I need this, that or the other to improve them… Commitment it is then. Commitment not complication. Is the time right for you to commit to your own life too?
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I have chuckled my way through this post as if looking at myself in the mirror and seeing a British fave with lovely dark curls staring back at me. You have described by life, habits, weaknesses and personality perfectly.
Ah, simplifying. I should do some of that. I, too, stop at different libraries (there’s one close to our home where we usually go, but we like the one in town for story time) and different grocery stores (there is a store that has everything, but I can often get the same things cheaper if I stop at Aldi and/or Costco–but I still have to go to the other store to pick up the things those two shops don’t carry). I’m not sure if it’s an inability to commit, or if it is, then *why.* I will have to think about that. I’ve gotten better at accepting “good enough” so I can quit seeking ‘the perfect whatever’–I have one purse I use all the time, and try not to notice if it doesn’t quite match what I’m wearing, for example. I just need to apply the “good enough” mindset elsewhere in my life, I guess. 🙂
I have a serious notebook addiction, I buy them all the time and fill them with plans and notes and dreams. I buy mine from Erin Condren so I can change the covers and add dividers to suit how I feel! I have a collection of these and they make me happy 🙂 I don’t have a problem with commitment as such, but I do get really restless. I’m not sure if that is the same thing or not?
I can relate to at least some of these examples. Office supply stores are dangerous places for me. If you find that perfect pen, do let me know, please.
Boxed set recommendation: Gilmore Girls, if you haven’t already seen it. My daughter and I are binge-watching it snuggled under blankets, eating Easter eggs these school holidays. Bliss.
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I have chuckled my way through this post as if looking at myself in the mirror and seeing a British fave with lovely dark curls staring back at me.
You have described by life, habits, weaknesses and personality perfectly.
Sorry that should have read British face.
Ah, simplifying. I should do some of that. I, too, stop at different libraries (there’s one close to our home where we usually go, but we like the one in town for story time) and different grocery stores (there is a store that has everything, but I can often get the same things cheaper if I stop at Aldi and/or Costco–but I still have to go to the other store to pick up the things those two shops don’t carry). I’m not sure if it’s an inability to commit, or if it is, then *why.* I will have to think about that.
I’ve gotten better at accepting “good enough” so I can quit seeking ‘the perfect whatever’–I have one purse I use all the time, and try not to notice if it doesn’t quite match what I’m wearing, for example. I just need to apply the “good enough” mindset elsewhere in my life, I guess. 🙂
Pen: get thee to Paperchase and buy a Pilot V ball (the ones with rounded ends, not the flat end to the cap.) I refuse to write with anything else.
I have a serious notebook addiction, I buy them all the time and fill them with plans and notes and dreams. I buy mine from Erin Condren so I can change the covers and add dividers to suit how I feel! I have a collection of these and they make me happy 🙂
I don’t have a problem with commitment as such, but I do get really restless. I’m not sure if that is the same thing or not?
https://www.erincondren.com/referral/invite/heatherbooth0623
I can relate to at least some of these examples. Office supply stores are dangerous places for me. If you find that perfect pen, do let me know, please.
No matter if some one searches for his necessary thing,
so he/she wants to be available that in detail, thus that thing
is maintained over here.
Boxed set recommendation: Gilmore Girls, if you haven’t already seen it. My daughter and I are binge-watching it snuggled under blankets, eating Easter eggs these school holidays. Bliss.