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The illustrations are by Taku Bannai from Japan. “I love simple forms and empty spaces,
so that people can make up their own minds when looking at my work.” Bannaitaku.jp; @takubannaiInsight
Less effort, less ballast and less drama in
your life: What would that be like? That was
the question that kicked off the second
lesson of the online course I was taking:
‘Simplify Your Life’. Well, those words
conjured up so many associations for me:
space, relief, light, time and pleasure! The
next question was: And what would be
needed to achieve that? This was harder to
answer. The fact is that I found my life too
full, but how to solve that was a mystery to
me. In an effort to find the answer, the day
after that lesson I picked up my diary as
soon as I woke up. I made a drawing of
everything that was on my mind in those
first minutes of the day. When I now thumb
through that diary, I see that on that day,
more than 40 thoughts were competing for
my attention first thing in the morning. I
drew them as scraps of paper, flying
through the room in a stormy whirlwind of
anxiety and haste. And exactly that—the
constant anxiety and haste—was what I
wanted to get to grips with.
Last year I really began noticing that it
was difficult for me to escape from
everything that I felt ‘had to be done’.
That’s why I decided to devote a year to
trying to find out how I could make my life
less stressful. When I woke up in the
morning, I often felt oppressed by the
thought of everything I had to do. As far as
I could see, my life and the lives of people
around me were clogged up with to-do
lists. Burnout is a social problem; we are all
stressed all the time. And although I’d been
researching this theme as a journalist for a
long time, that didn’t mean that I was
managing to actually apply the wisdom I
was reading about. So I decided to find out
how to achieve what I call ‘less stress, more
living’, and to start experimenting with all
the advice being handed out by doctors,
philosophers and psychologists. The year
would be about making things easier.CLEAR THE CLUTTER
I had only just started when I came across an
ad for the online course ‘A Year to Simplify
Your Life’ from DailyOM: ‘In today’s busy
world we tend to over-schedule ourselves,
piling on more responsibilities, more
commitments, and inevitably more stress.
Our relationships suffer, our homes fall into
disarray, and our bodies and souls begin to
languish. In our quest for convenience, and
in an effort to produce more time in our
hectic day, we overload ourselves with all
the latest technological advancements, yet
we often find that they only invite more
complication and disconnect. If we can find
ways to dial back the excess and forgo
unnecessary (often self-imposed) obligations,
we can begin to thrive in ways that are
reflected in every area of our lives. Time for
self-care and soul nourishment, deepening of
relationships, and surrounding ourselves with
beauty come to the forefront of our priorities
as less important list items fall away.’
Even just reading that intro gave me a
sense of relief. I signed up. It sounded like
a great way to help make my life easier >