Simple Living Isn't Easy

I know that it is no great insight that living simply is not easy. I'm not the first person to discover that taking the road less traveled is bumpier than the road pounded smooth with many feet. But sometimes I'm still surprised by this.

For example, as a family, we don't watch tv. As a result, we have to do something in the evenings, after work. Some nights we watch a movie together, but since we try to limit the nights we do that, we have to make an effort the other nights to actually do something together. Some nights we play a board game, some nights we read individually, and some nights we read aloud a family book (right now we're reading Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. If you are only familiar with the movies, I highly recommend the book.) Of course, lately, many nights we simply aren't home together so the choice isn't available.

I prefer the nights when we don't watch a movie, but some nights just are movie nights. We're too tired to put out the effort to do anything other than sit and watch. That's the way it is with a lot of simplifying.

Lately, I seem to be too tired or too busy to actively declutter anything. I have put in place some practices to make life simpler, but I seem to have stalled. I'm not moving forward. Progress is hard.

That's ok. What I have done so far is better than what I had before. I have more time to be home because I do all my shopping off a list, one day a week. Less clutter is piling up on flat spots. I have posted the extra car for sale, and I am looking forward to getting rid of a shelving unit because we have less stuff to store.

Some of the simplifying, decluttering, minimalist-ing is in the past, some is in the future. Not much is being done at the moment. But because of what I have done so far, we are discussing getting rid of things we never would have considered getting rid of before. That is an unbelievable change.

I know it's hard to simplify, hard to minimalize, but I have faith that it is worth it. Just as an evening playing games or reading together is more challenging than watching something on tv, I am confident that we will be better rewarded as a family for getting rid of the detritus that is making life harder than it needs to be.

I just need to remind myself of that.