Doing Less Will Get You More

Or why the tip and advice treadmill is a dead end

Apparently, July is poetry month in my brain. My last post on life lessons from a truffle hunter also included a poem. Today I have another one for you. It makes sense. As a young adult, I preferred poetry to prose. I seem to have come full circle.

This one is more of a list than a poem, but the great thing about poetry: anything can be it.

‘Less is more’ is an old, tired saying. But I’ve become convinced that this notion is absolutely the key to a life well-lived. We are in an age of excess positivity. Of more and more, faster and faster, better and better. The self-help and tip industries have become a massive part of the problem. Just trying to better ourselves, which is a wonderful instinct, now has no end. It becomes a prison.

And here’s the thing - we already know what to do. We have all the checklists. We have all the books and podcasts. We also – God forbid – have our own instincts and common sense.

Now, what we really need to do is to say no: to things that make us feel that we’re making our lives better but are actually just an endless, no-win grindstone of things and ideas being sold to us.

Think about it. Think about what it would mean to let go of just one task, one mental health strategy, one ‘protocol,’ one responsibility, one source of shame, or one to-do-list item. Picture it.

The job of curating and clarifying our lives takes thought. Below, I made this list/poem for myself to think about the benefits of putting in this effort because saying no isn’t the absence of intention. It is the presence of intention. It helps to remind ourselves of the payoffs.

Doing less will get me more:

Time

Renewal

Mystification. I want to feel the thrill of not knowing on a daily basis.

Self-trust = self confidence. Why are we listening to everyone but ourselves?

Bandwidth - Turing up the energy & turning down the frazzle

Choice. I want to exercise my right to say NO (thank you).

Noticing. My attention is my perception. What new thing will I notice about the life I’ve created?

Daydreaming and curiosity 

Friends, family, and fun

Mistakes, the ones I can learn from

Satiety. I’m stuffed to the gills with useless information, tips, clickbait, and the damnable listification of well-being (present list excluded?)

Beauty, which is always there, but I can’t even see

Time to care

Quiet

Presence = feeling alive