Recently I re-wrote my About page, and it is the truest version of the reason I created this business that I’ve ever put into words.
For purposes of this blog post, here is the part you most need to know:
If you constantly chase beauty, love and usefulness, and release anything that is not one of those three, you will eventually find all you will have are beauty, love and usefulness.
Doesn’t that sound delightful?
Start where it hurts the most, and find one thing you can let go that is not beautiful, loved or useful. Repeat that, again and again.
At the same time, commit to only letting new things into your life if they fit the criteria: is it beautiful? Do I love it? Is it useful?
Here’s the secret: when you do these two things, you’re creating your own paradise, one choice at a time.
The subject has still been rolling around in my brain, though, and I keep thinking of more I want to say about it. One thing that has come to mind is something you may have thought of as well, which is this:
All that beautiful, loved and useful stuff is well and good and idealistic, Michelle, but how does this fit in to my real life?
I used to struggle with the contradictions in the things I want. I value sustainability, and being conscious of how my choices affect the people around me, but I like beautiful things and having certain “material stuff” in my possession. Creature comforts. Those two views don’t match up, at least not on the surface. If I truly value sustainability, I have to be a minimalist, right?
I want to eat healthy and be healthy, but I don’t want to give up my favorite foods, and the experience of tasting food so good it makes your jaw ache. (You know that feeling? YEAH. That’s the good stuff.) But if I’m going to be healthy, I have to give up my favorite rich foods, and eat only kale and things that taste like cardboard. Right?
What I have found in chasing the beautiful, loved and useful, though, is the things I truly love can always co-exist. If I wait long enough and cut out the things that aren’t BLU in the favor of things that are, the perfect solution just . . . presents itself.
Like finding my own perfect balance between not having too much stuff, but making sure everything that remains is beautiful, loved and useful. Approaching sustainability in this way doesn’t feel like a sacrifice, it feels wonderful.
Like refusing to eat “healthy” food if it doesn’t taste good . . . or processed food, if it doesn’t feel good. Approaching my food this way feels so obvious, why would I want it any other way?
I believe you can create a life with all the things you truly want, and nothing that you don’t, and it will be beautiful.
That is a life well lived. And we can be living proof, in the making.
I’ll leave this post with a bit of food for thought. If you have a hard time fitting two of your wants together…maybe that’s why YOU exist. To find a way to put them together, in a way that feels right. Interesting thought, no?
This concept of having exactly what you want (and nothing that you don’t) is baked right into my course, Love What You Have. Click here to learn more.
