Dude, Where’s My Car?…Supposed to Fit?

Not all downsizing is negative. If you’re bloated and unhealthily overweight, you want to lose some. If your endangered plane is low on fuel, you want to dump some useless mass that burdens and could hamper your very survival. Today’s supposedly personal question stumps business people, too, and could even occupy that great live-work loft space in your heart and mind…    — BadWitch

Readers Are Spellbound & Perplexed…

Dear GW/BW — What do you think about (lifestyle) downsizing whether a person needs to (financially) or not?  — Overloaded Oliver

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Dear Overloaded Oliver,

Lighten your load! You’ll feel better for it on so many levels—mental, physical and financial. Lifestyle downsizing does not mean doing without. It also has absolutely NOTHING to do with how others perceive you. Lifestyle downsizing is about cutting out the clutter with which we have learned to fill our lives.

Affluenza, “the bloated, sluggish feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the joneses,” somehow replaced the simple values of the original American Dream. We went from wanting our own little piece of land to needing to have bigger lots, more rooms, multiple car garages and all the appropriate labels to show the world we have achieved. In this day and age, we can clearly see that’s not working out too well.

Many years ago my sister, a bankruptcy attorney, gave me a book that changed my life. The Millionaire Next Door cites how most millionaires live below their means. They drive older vehicles and live in modest homes and are worth over $1million. They do not live the Dynasty lifestyle. They do not drive luxury vehicles and they do not live paycheck to paycheck. The average “fabulous” American consumer lives paycheck to paycheck, carries at least $10,000 in credit card debt and carries a whole lot more stress over finances. Lifestyle downsizing is good for your health, mental wellness, financial wellness and the ecosystem.

Suze Orman, whose mantra is live on less, offers some tips to downsizing from her January 2009 appearance on Oprah. The idea is to decide what you need vs. what you want vs. what you think you are suppose to want. Downsizing allows you to reevaluate what you are spending your money on. It is a chance to review your lifestyle and cut out all the detritus. Who wins? YOU!

I, myself, have discovered home manicure/pedicures make for some fun evenings with my girls. Cutting out most eating out has allowed me to rediscovered my love of cooking (which I lost in the divorce). Now, my daughters are asking for cooking lessons too. I win in time spent nurturing myself (instead of paying someone else to do it). I win in my relationships and my pocketbook.

Geting back to basics—priceless,

GoodWitch

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Dear Overloaded Oliver,

Darlin’, I’m still working on lightening up the inside of my designer purse. Serendipitously, I received your question as I was reading a business article, immediately after thinking, “I need to streamline get back to basics.” My basics, sure, but — my basics in question here: “values.”

“Downsizing” is not automatically synonymous with people or things, there’s the overlooked awesomeness of downsizing clutter (of mind, auto-pilot living which sure, often shows up as plain old accumulated crap! But that’s just a symptom) to get back to one’s values. Quiet to detox (see our post on Fasting) to distill to essence (maybe even, again) what’s genuinely important to you. While I’m not in debt nor care what the Joneses think — my self-inventory surprisingly uncovered some dogmas and Must Haves I lived with all my adult life, that I realized have evolved over the years to not being the deal breakers they had been — the majority of it had nothing to do with “things.” Then, here’s that BusinessWeek article about leather goods company Coach’s mission to re-adjust itself for the long haul while supporting its own core values. It’s about how little things shape and reflect one’s Big Picture (values living). I found this supposed business article to be extremely spiritual. What a cosmic underscore for me!

Downsizing. To adapt to prevailing (or in my case, advanced-to) conditions toward evolving to a new “normal” to thrive. Quiet the noise (the jumbled, persistent sound inside your head usually manifests at your next garage sale!), stop claiming an insatiable “boredom” and start listening to what you’re really saying to yourself in there…Lighten up to grow more.

Happy unblocking,

BW

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