Minimal Lifestyle.

Hello, it is Emi again! In this post… I would like to talk about LIFE, and how we all got limited time on the earth. in other words…

with out fail, we are all going to die one day.

Intense start indeed, and this must not be a surprise for you. But do you truely know this as a fact? That… you will die? Have you seriously considered that? And do you use your time to make your life valuable to you? You may wonder how is this going to be relating to minimalism and decluttering. But yes, it is very much related! In my blog posts i have two categories, “Mindsets” and “Approaches”… and this is definitely belonging to the first one. You see… Minimalistic lifestyle leads to fulfilling life. This is because minimalists know that the most wasteful things to do is not to get rid of things and objects… rather, it is to waste time.

Today when I wake up, the first thing I did was texting my friend Judy, “happy birthday”. Judy is one of my oldest friend, and we known each other since primary school. Judy and me, we manage to remember our existence every year around each others birthday. Isn’t that special? She live in Japan, I am in Australia. Our birthdays are both in July… mine is on 6th, hers is 19th.

On my birthday this year, she texted me this:

I know… very touching and beautiful messages isn’t it?! We are actually not very wordy, and do not care too much about our age. However, we do just sincerely hope each other to have the best time in the year.

And today, I sent her a message, accompanied by a screen shot I took from a daily quote in my meditation app, TIDE:

I wish the same to you too! That you have a great, wonderful life. For this reason, I keep showing up here…talk to you. And Simultaneously by doing that you are helping me to be fulfilled in my life… to revolutionise our ways to make living.

Fun fact… I spend six hours writing this post, and it got deleted. 🌚 my English writing can be very poor, and I use so much time correcting my grammar for smoother reading. Now it is about 11:30pm, and I am re-writing this again. I am determined to get this done today!

I am burning my life to do this. 🔥And you are burning your life to read this post! 🔥Thank you so so so much! Let’s d this!!💪🌈

For some reason, we all tend to feel like it’s the other people who will die eventually… not ourself! This might be why we postpone so many things that we say hope to do someday. We all do. Do you have a gorgeous dress you imagine to wear someday but never seems to make the occasion…sets of paint brushes that you hold on to because you are meant to be an artist eventually… loved ones you never feel comfortable to make time to tell them how much you appreciate them…The day might never come… at least will not come by it’s self. It is entirely up to us to make it happen by taking actions.

Noticed the calmness of the front cover illustration of this book? 😇 Despite it talks about what we tend not to prefer to speak about… death, believe it or not the entire tone and attitude of narration is happy and optimistic. The author says how we should drop “death” in the middle of our heart, lead us to accept it, and urge us to question what we are doing with our valuable time. It asks questions such as “how many more times I get to see sakura? (Sakura blossoms once in a year)” “how many more times I can spend time with my parents? “If you die today and your death made the news… what will be written on the article?”

💀❤️😌🙏

This book provides lots of great life examples of people who lived their life the fullest. Such as…

• Ryoma Sakamoto 🎌…samurai and revolutionist who constantly turns crisis into opportunities.
• Lively citizens in Yamada City, Japan who suffered from natural disaster, tsunami 🌊…lost everything yet rise up and keep their head toward the future.
• 90 years old elderly lady 👵 who told youngsters to “dance more”, “be on your bare feet”, “go out to fields and pick daisies🌼”, “do stupid and courageous things to amuse yourself”.

I feel they all have these qualities in common… they do not take “future” too seriously, not let other things to get in the way for their life purpose, and laugh from bottom of their heart with their loved ones. If right this moment, you feel your life is boring.. maybe this is because what you have and do is not something excites you. Your job, living arrangement, your relationships…anything that you can think of?

I urge you to do this… write this down, or have digital copy in your phone. That is ask yourself:

“How is my ideal ✨🌈🦄🦋perfect day looking like?”

This is called Miracle question… by the above book author Mister Hisui. Actually, the same kind of question is asked by many life coaches, therapist too. I personally stumbled upon a guide line and self-reflection questions before, which looked like this… I wrote the following about one year ago from today:

Please excuse my messy hand writing! Basically, This process involves us to write down every detail that you can think of for your such beautiful amazing dream day. This include:

• What will be your perfect morning routine be? What time to wake up? What kind of room you were sleeping in? What breakfast? With who?
• What time do you start your work? What is your ideal work setting? What kinds of clients you are working with? What contributions you give to solve problems? what time you finish your work?
• What is your evening looking like? Relaxation? Fun time? Cooking? How you rewind… with who?
• What kind of neighbourhood you are living in? What kind of living situation?

I the aim her is ⚠️ Not to end this process as a meditation routine. It is not a temporary effort, we need to stick to this image that we painted ourself to be…

I urge you to start live your life being the “perfect version” of you that you illustrated, right now.💪

When I wrote down my “perfect ideal day” from above, my living situation was like this:

• Living by myself in a one bedroom apartment, not with my partner yet.
• My neighbourhood was in a business district, not surrounded with nature as I would have much preferred.
• Working full time as a teacher, having only one day in a week to myself. (other days filled up with catching up with family members, maintaining relationship with my partner)
• Hoping to start a “side hustle”, other income resource by trying this and that…

I still had fun then! But it was far from my ideals:

• Be closer to my partner, have more time to enjoy morning and evening together.
• To be my own boss! having my own business, work from anywhere I want.
• Having more connection with people who are positive, who I can learn and be inspired from.

One year later from when i held these goals… I am very happy to report to you that i am definitely getting closer to my ideal version of me! 🎊

👑Now I… ⇩

• Work part time… 4 days with my day job as a teacher, 2 days to do this…advocating minimalism as my own growing business! ✌️
• Moved in with my partner, living in a greener suburb!🌿
• having more time to enjoy life with loved ones! ❤️
• Be able to save more money by negotiating terms of renting out investment property and cut down living cost! 💰
• Meeting new people through supporting my partner’s business now that we are in much closer distance! 🤝
• Selling tickets for my first ever event for my business! 🎉 (Click HERE for more detail!)

🌞This is how I did it:

• Set fixed time slot in your week to keep showing up to do work for making progress.
• stop making to-do list for important tasks. it is a letter to “future” you who does not even exist. You know what needs to be done. Just do it, NOW.
• Eliminate all the distractions (Minimalism!) That hindered you from using time wisely. For small example, I got rid of many clothing items… to cut down times i spend obsessing about my appearance.
• get rid of “Hobbie”, that once represented “once upon a time me”. in my case, it is drawing. i no longer need to hold on to paint brushes and artwork I created in the past. Put spot light on “Current me” and see where the fulfilment come from now.
• Know how much exactly is enough for maintaining living. When I see the wiggle room, possibility to cut down my work day hours, i run through all the life cost with all the parties that relate to my money. I wanted to get my time back!
• Avoid people who discourage my goals. Surprisingly, it can be your loved ones who d this to you… such as close friends, family members, even your life partner. They pull the breaks on your decisions and dreams because they are truly concerned for you… do not want to see you got hurt! You do not need to part ways with them entirely… just be selective of how and what you communicate with them.
• Be open, receptive to suggestions from the wises. Luckily for me, my partner does this for me. He believe in me even in the moments I do not. If you have someone like that, keep talking to them.

To sum up… I am hoping that what i promote here as a minimalist provide courage for more people to keep examine life, bettering ourselves with the time we have right now. If this blog post caught your eyes and finished reading this… THANK YOU!😁 Welcome to be part of my world and dream! ❤️ I would like to be yours’ too!

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And Also… I would like to invite you to my coming event! Click the following link for more details:

I will see you in next post! 🦅