Your Focus Is Your Reality

"Seek and ye shall find."

-scriptural reference

     So I know I said that I was going to do a post everyday last week about my journey to a minimalistic lifestyle, but there was more to this de-cluttering aspect of minimalism than I thought. The one thing that I didn't plan on, was the new awareness that comes with it. It took me much longer to complete this task than I anticipated. As I went through my bedroom, the awareness I gained was of how many unnecessary things I had decorating my closet... my shelves... my walls... and ultimately my floor. As I went through the things I had in my room, I was overwhelmed by how many totally useless items I had. The only question I was asking myself the whole time, was "why haven't gotten rid of this already?" The answer to this question is selective attention.

My Wardrobe Before Downsizing

     Basically, our brain has a filter that sifts through all the stimuli that we are experiencing at any given moment and prioritizes them as relevant or irrelevant. Then the relevant stimuli are brought to our attention so we can deal with them accordingly. So with the clutter in my bedroom. I was unaware of how much clutter I actually had because it didn't score very high in the relevance category in my brain. But now that I was actually looking for clutter, all that stuff went from irrelevant to relevant at the flick of a switch. After that switch was flipped, I saw so much more.
     I didn't just de-clutter, I also downsized. The one example that I took a picture of was my wardrobe. I won't say that I had ton of clothes, but I had too much to where I didn't wear all of it. So I laid it all out and picked and chose my favorites out of what I had. That way I would always being wearing my favorite clothes. That's what I did.
     Now some may argue that I still have too much, but I feel that if you use all of it, then you have the right amount for you. It's all dependent on what you want. I could downsize even more if I wanted, but I'm comfortable handling what I've got. Plus, it has made it extremely simple to do laundry and clean my room. So I have to say that so far, minimalistic living might be for me. The reason behind that, is because I have more time to do what makes me LIVE NOW and what I love to do. The last thing that I will say about selective attention, is that it can be used to make your life more vibrant and exciting. You see what you want to see in life. Who doesn't want more time to do what they want, and to make their lives more rich and exciting? Thanks for reading, and we'll talk soon! Next stop... Declaring a clutter free zone!
     

My Wardrobe After Downsizing... Tadaah!