Daily Writing
restart
Stop thinking of words like 'restart' negatively.
Many of us reach troughs or setbacks with the complete opposite mindset to what those who succeed have. Our culture has reinforced this shame in things like moving back in with your parents to save on rent or making a lateral career move to a company more aligned with your values.
Shame isn't spent only in the big things. Failure in workout regiments, relationships, or spiritual disciplines tend to spiral us to compoundingly negative paradigms.
Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.
Alfred (Batman Begins)
Foster a paradigm that is resiliently compounding positives.
If we see every fall as a chance to rise stronger and smarter, we grow a rare mindset that is self-affirming and independent (two proven qualities that lead to great success in business and in life). Every tech mogul in Silicon Valley circa 1985 working twenty years later had this mindset to carry them through adversity.
Steve Jobs was abruptly thrust into the spotlight, battered out of the company he built, and brought back as a herald of a new revolution. In the 90's, the public saw that, "Jobs does nothing in half measures and so seems to reap his rewards in abject failure and stunning successes."
"Stunning successes" merit "abject failure" at times, and when we don't enter "overcome mode" we can be torn apart, ripped, broken, and chewed up by our own thinking.
Life is hard. Trials come; failure happens.
It's always our response that dictates what happens next.
true voice
How can we be certain that our voice is our own? Not the frequency we speak at or the timbre of our voice, but the way we craft sentences and use language.
As a writer, I have clear evidence of my most recent readings affecting my prose. It's barely conscious in the moment. It doesn't make for terrible writing. But it's not my true voice.
Some spiritual and meditative gurus talk of finding our "true selves" through practices of self-reflection. One of the things that interferes with this discovery is the consumption of inputs created by anyone other than ourselves.
Without a true voice, we are more likely to be swayed by popular action or character. We find it easier to sound like the crowd and shape ourselves to what they say. A writer without his voice becomes a parrot of other works, endlessly regurgitating the same style, words or symmetries
"Eschew all diversion." Seems a bit extreme- necessary at times maybe- but not long-term. This route suggests "dopamine fasts" to cut all connections to stimulating distractions, hence restoring our focus, clarity and ability to sit with ourselves.
The answer to finding our "true voice" lies in our passions. The things we love are the things we cannot be dishonest about. Find that and you've found your voice.
The Overstory
The Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Richard Powers has been described as "a fable". Fable means truth. From the Latin, "that which is told", and Webster, "a narrative intended to enforce a useful truth."
A useful truth says we need to stop. Stop and consider. Stop and consider and protect.
Powers intertwines the lives of eight human's in his narrative, telling their stories over a span of decades of connecting branches. This alone would be a triumph endowed, but in this homo sapien overstory there are swelling roots and towering trunks of a tale of arborescence supporting humanity's grasp at life.
A literary sentinel stands to secure circulation of a message that has dire need of delivery and, more importantly, action. The reason for Powers' message:
The world had 6 trillion trees, when people showed up. Half remain. Half again will disappear, in a hundred years.
The effects of the maltreatment of our planet do not have distant ramifications. We see collapse in our ecosystems now in Puerto Rico, California, the Arctics. You can't be enraged for these crimes without seeing the damage and understanding the root sin in man's actions.
Still.
The Overstory plants a seed that goes;
a seed that knows.
One that can bring us home,
and restore this world's broken bone's.
weekly keystone
Habit is a long-term game. We can be habitual till the weekend, maybe make it past that, but eventually, we forget why our habit exists in the first place.
In order to play a long-term game, we need long-term practices. Every week is a new chance to fail and forget or to act and progress.
Michael Hyatt has greatly popularized (among many other things) the idea of The Ideal Week, a weekly system to plan a perfect week physically, socially, vocationally, and recreationally.
Seeing the big picture can push you to live out your intentions for a week:
- Remind yourself of quarterly goals and project's progress.
- Reread an inspirational piece that has galvanized action in the past.
- Budget your time and money each week in accordance with your core values.
You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
James Clear, Atomic Habits
I've begun rereading Steven Pressfield's, The War of Art, at the beginning of each week in sections to remember the reason why I have taken on some of the challenges in my life. Reflection can incite advancement in ways that keeping our heads down on the grind never can.
daily keystone
We have to walk before we can run.
I once had an English professor who began every class forcing a paper and pen into our hands with a prompt and orders not to let the pen leave the paper. For 10 to 15 minutes, 3 days a week, with our coach hovering past tables with encouragement and admonishment, we wrote 500-800 words.
He believed if you can do a thing, everyday, consistently well, at the start of your day, you can do any other thing.
This is the guiding principle behind keystone habits.
I've decided to write everyday (Monday-Friday) for the foreseeable future to prove to myself that I have this muscle and can sustain the practice for a long period. My eventual hope is to have a body of work that I can enjoy, gain insights from, and develop a compelling narrative around.
Small steps are how mountains are climbed. Incremental revision is how change is made. Daily habits are how lifestyles are built.
Find the mountain you want to climb, encourage the change you want made. Then build.
bandwidth
What can I do as a college student?
Short answer: anything.
The current generation of college students (namely Millennials wrapping up graduate programs and Gen Z'ers entering them) is one that desires purpose and fulfillment from what they do. Career assessments, personality tests, the Enneagram- The resurgence of meditation and mindfulness as disciplines in our culture scream of a craving for inner quiet and deeper connections. A generation of "trend-breakers" seeks to level the playing field for all and support their communities and the world at large in big ways.
Good news for them- they are currently in the easiest position they will ever be in to make changes like this. With a third of parents saying they will pay for their children to attend college and two thirds receiving scholarships or grants to aid the cost, college becomes a place with overhead covered and finances beginning to be freed.
Most college students will joke about being broke, but this can actually lead to flexibility beyond belief.
I have friends who are creating businesses, buying out storefronts, freelancing, or, like me, writing everyday. They choose to do these things because they are driven to do purposeful work and they have bandwidth.
What can you do?
time to stop
Class 8:00-9:45. Email respondents 9:55-10:30. Haircut 11:00-12:00. Lunch with Riley 12:15-12:59. Arrive at work 1:00-...
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." -Groucho Marx
Do we lose a surplus of this valuable resource by tracking it so religiously?
In 1972, a game-changing piece of technology came into play that shifted the paradigm. Hamilton Watch Company presented the first iteration of Pulsar digital watches to a market that had worn only traditional (analog) clock faces. Before digital, we operated on a "flexible" system that incorporated time measurements like half-past five or quarter-to four rounding minutia. More laid-back business and social expectations characterized a western culture that was not yet defined by attitudes of the hustle, burn-out or "the rat race".
A speaker I once heard challenged his audience to hold their phones, set their timers to one minute, and close their eyes when they started the timer. He asked us to try and preempt the timer going off by the lowest possible amount- using our internal clocks to get as close to 59.99 seconds as we could.
Nearly every person had undershot the minute by 15-25 seconds, believing a minute to be 20-35% shorter than it actually is.
When we track time, we lose it. When we live life, we gain it.
First, We Make the Beast Beautiful
I think we can all use a little of this right now.
I recently read Sarah Wilson's enlightening book covering "a new journey through anxiety." Her premise, aside from giving us a look into an anxiety-brimming mind and life, is based on an old Chinese proverb:
Before you can conquer a beast, you first must make it beautiful.
While practical treatment with medicine and professional treatment should always be considered first in cases of anxiety, depression and bipolar* (a place to call for those working through these struggles is here at government mental health departments), deep introspection and mindset shifts are what Wilson ultimately introduces to fight her battles.
*I retooled her premise with the perspective of mindsets and paradigms that I believe about myself. This is the direction I lead my writing...
What are the things we repeat to ourselves daily- The job market is too competitive to get hired, my work doesn't compare to what they're doing, I couldn't mean enough to them.
What is the thing (emotion, belief, trauma) that "mantra" is rooted in? Fear of failure, self-loathing, self-defeating woe.
This is where Wilson steps in and says, "Yes, I've got these conditions (mindsets)... But they are also my superpowers." She writes about the joy she gets writing letters to her brain, asking it questions about why it does what it does and why it thinks it can control so many of her actions. She befriends the "beast" and walks with it, not against it, to live a more healthy, less panicky life.
There is a meta-purpose to the battles we fight everyday against our minds's pernicious games. We can conquer the beast and, behind its lies, find beauty. Make that a mantra.
Sarah Wilson, First We Make the Beast Beautiful.
more webbing
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Lost, those cork-board, crime-solving, mind maps. Some people are obsessed with making everything fit together in a seamlessly holistic universe of multiplicative connections.
I am one of those people.
As long as I have thought about writing on a consistent basis, the idea of writing to create a spider's web of interconnected thoughts and projects has been central to my planning and drive (CliftonStrengths assessment terms this proclivity, Ideation).
Spiders create a framework for their circular webbed pattern to be laid upon in the same way that builders construct scaffolding to shadow a house being built before any walls go up.
Initially, I wrote long-form, research posts that covered, in-depth, topics to my scheming. With new inspiration (see, a body of work), I have planted the seed of shorter writings that take only a day to fruit.
Using both approaches, I will build a trellis of ideas that can spread and take root.
I want to create something that lasts; something that is a foundation for growth to occur; something that unfurls for a lifetime and reaches parts unknown.
writer's manifesto
Pulitzer Prize winning author, Junot Díaz, once spoke of "becoming the person you need to become to write" the book you want to write. A step further:
Become the book you want to write.
Writing keeps us honest in a way that speaking or other forms of expression can't replicate. We examine our lives with ink-sized scrutiny. We reveal what we know and don't know about a subject. We show how well we can draw truth from a thing.
... but only if we let it.
Writing can be the tool we use to make personal, societal, global change. We all have something to give to the world, but are we honest enough, committed enough, loving enough to draw it out of ourselves?
"Writing is the supreme way of blotting out your ignorance on a subject... It's a confessional; it will reveal everything about you while you imagine you are revealing someone else." Bertoldo di Giovani, Florentine Artist
not writer's block
Today, I wanted to write about Disc Golf and The Phantom of the Opera. What I didn't realize (until thirty minutes in) was how different these two things were.
You heard me- "different". Shocker, right?
Yes, I, and potentially thousands of other poor souls like myself, suffer from something I call "acute extrapolatory ideation".
On occasion, I feel obligated, sometimes even empowered, to create the most tenuous links between things that I see in order to drive home a real truth.
Disc Golf and opera, killer whales and meditation, Space Jam and the top-hat, monocole-wearing peanut man (actually, that one works). The problem is, at times, the inexplicable connections created cloud that truth.
This is the antithesis of writer's block.
The solution (for those of you curious for your own sake):
Draw out your stipulations to the farthest possible point. 1 in 32 times, you strike tungsten (valued at one, one-thousandth of gold- I can't promise gold here! Who do you think I am? Seth Godin?). If your link between Lu Lu Lemon's marketing strategy and a biblical truth really is flimsier than a crowbar at 2800° F, then that's one less "rabbit trail" to hop down.
Or maybe, like me you'll find a story beneath your story that contains more truth for yourself than for your reader.
no fail readings
In No Fail Meetings, Michael Hyatt writes that, "a good meeting should impact your calendar at least three times":
- Before: preparation (for the meeting)
- During: the meeting itself
- After: the followup meeting
Substitute meeting for reading.
To approach a book without knowing the author and work you are to spend copious amounts of time with is not only foolish, but inefficient. In meetings, we know our client's work history, preferences, and intentions to a degree.
Substitute client for author.
During a meeting, we take notes, ask questions we prepared, and ponder future implications of the discussion.
After a meeting, we review highlights and action items, see if we need to return to what was discussed, and determine what, if any, change is needed.
***Note: After reading some incredible, medieval sci-fi in Pierce Brown's Red Rising saga, I would recommend to no one that they prepare themselves in any way but emotionally for this kind of reading. This does not apply to most fiction.***
I would proffer that the due diligence we put into meetings is also applicable to the time we invest into books. Authors spend years preparing their work to have something to say to us- why shouldn't we listen closely?
subway restrooms
They're not great for much. In fact, they leave nearly everything to be desired and pale in comparison to a certain beaver-ee rest-stop from the south.
If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?
... A book must be like an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us.
Kafka
This is how I feel about The War of Art. Few books are so consistently called "a kick in the pants"(see Cover and 'Praise For') with such good reasoning.
Which leads us nicely back to Subway restrooms.
If you are one to frequent food-places to churn through your reading list, and you carry a book so engrossing, so important that you can't put it down for three minutes to relieve yourself, hold onto this book...
And go read The War of Art.
And wash your hands.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech-Austrian, Jewish writer:
Letter to Oskar Pollak (27 Jan 1904)*
Pressfield, Steven. The War of Art: Break through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. *Kafka quote pulled from Pressfield's findings.
a body of work
Behind a body of work are these:
Relentless daily application
Major and enumerable failure
Unrestrained exploration of diversification
Michaelangelo Buonarroti's first lesson in art was to create a body of work. Creator of The David, painter of the Sistine Vault, architect of the Dome of St Peter's; suffice it to say, he succeeded.
The Marble Master of Florence (and eventually Europe and the world) did not let a day go by that he did not realize his discipline, creating works that were never shown and never gained the fame of other pieces (See also the 80/20 Principle).
This daily practice led him to expand into every field of art imaginable from drawing, painting, sculpting and woodwork to roadbuilding, architecture, invention and physics.
In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield writes about a day of writing, asking "How many pages have I produced? I don't care. Are they any good? I don't even think about it." The artist realizes the greater importance of work happening in a day over its quality or impressiveness.
Pressfield and Michaelangelo both endowed a body of work to the world, not for the social or financial capital they receive or the legacy they hope to secure, but for the love of their work they experienced everyday.
Irving Stone, The Agony and The Ecstasy.
Steven Pressfield, The War of Art.
Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle.
scales
I used to think life was purely a system of checks and balances. Cause and effect. A man grasps his smallness in the world and either succumbs to this truth or acts out at the world. An artist is criticized harshly and either quits his work or makes better art.
I've seen this pattern in my own life. I have recognized that my path in business is one filled with the temptation and meaninglessness of climbing the proverbial ladder of success. Checks. And, I became intentional and minimalistic, so I would walk a different path to work in a world that drones, "more." Balances.
But this does not always have to be.
I do not believe change is always precipitated by a fall.
With an act of will and foresight, we can become what we need to be to grow. We can preempt the change that would be forced upon us by hurt.
There's more than one way to fix what is broken, and more than one way to find renewal from looking ahead.
Now, let intentionality enter your life without the prompting of pain.
tools, not feeds // lpII 3-mo review
What does being present mean to you?
For me, it's become a lifestyle I choose to pursue, not often well, but intentionally.
My reason for investing in an uncertain Indiegogo campaign was not for the awesome specs on a new technology, or because I am an early adopter-type. It was for a day that snow fell on campus and I sat and wrote about love and being, watching flakes fall from the heavens and spill upon the ground transforming into a blanket of white. It was for the opportunity to gaze unhindered into another's eyes and carry a conversation with them about small things that matter.
It was for these and moments similar that I decided to invest $350 to part with my iPhone and choose something different.
Have you ever tried to listen to one or two conversations in a cafeteria while also engaging who or what is in front of you? You will most assuredly begin to lose track of what response is pertinent to what conversation.
I feel like as a culture we have done a good job of recognizing multitasking as a myth, but for those who are still confident in their spilt-focus ways, read here about the truth that's been found.
We do the same thing when we're in conversation and our phones 'ping' with a notification for text, email or social media- we're pulled into that world and out of the real world. Momentarily, we just glance, but ultimately, we begin a thread of new interactions with whatever is within our screen, diverting attention from the person with which we sought connection.
I was an addict. An addict to my phone's calendar and email. Planning every half-hour of my day led me to a place of, what I call, "not-presence". I had "not-presence" in conversations with people I cared about because of how "future-minded" I had become, simply looking ahead at the next thing on my plate that day.
Maybe this reliance on technology is similar to your own, or you have a different preferred daily gadget on your device, but we must be aware of the thin line between tool and crutch that we all walk with technology.
I am not advocating for societal adoption of "simple technology" or a renaissance of "dumb-phones" by all. My drive, always, is to simply present another way. A different path is out there. I do not believe the LightPhoneII is functional for every career, person or lifestyle as a primary phone.
That being said, I now operate in a world where I thrive with the freedom from connectivity and am able to intentionally connect in a way that is most me-like, free of the frills and dressings that my previous modus operandi provided.
The LightPhoneII has its ups and downs as an entry to a new tech sphere that is growing larger, but the vision of the product is achieved in its ability to be used as little as possible for the life I lead.
what others say:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/light-phone-2-review
https://time.com/best-inventions-2019/the-light-phone-ii/
https://www.theverge.com/2019/light-phone-2
choice minimalism
*A quick comment on the "pick and choose" nature of minimalism.
My favorite trait of minimalism and an intentional lifestyle is just that-It's intentional!
Minimalism is not a one-size-fits-all kind of lifestyle or a cookie-cutter fit treatment to living. You take what most deeply benefits you in your walk. (***Remembering theminimalists charge to "love people and use things"***)
A capsule wardrobe was the first reform that I latched on to and found extreme benefit in, until later when I followed a calling forward into digital minimalism and essentialism.
I have a lot of books. Even maintaining a limited size, I have built up a modest library after a year of collecting and reading (***I plan to make 2020 Q1 a quarter of rereading to stem the spending and consumption of new learning material***). Some minimalists choose tablets or eBooks to minimize their physical possessions. This is an area of my life that I have chosen purposefully. The underlying need behind minimalism is a need to question motivations behind consumption.
So, choose your own adventure in exploring different avenues to minimalism and truly make it your own.
the important things
What is most important to you?
This question is at the core of an intentional minimalist lifestyle because when we truly let this question spread throughout every part of our lives, few things are left to stay.
Look to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The above question is satisfied for every person by the bare minimums in this structure. Food, water, shelter, rest and security (minimum financial requirements incorporated) are built into the bottom two tiers.
The third tier includes our innate desire to be a part of community and be valued. This goes hand in hand with the fourth tier, esteem, that encapsulates our need to feel accomplished or good enough.
Minimalism (similar to stoicism) mends our struggles with the fifth tier, self-acceptance, in being okay with your potential achieved.
In theminimalists book, an exploration and subsequent action from the question, "what is most important to oneself", leaves us with everything that remains. And everything that remains is enough (food, shelter, love, purpose). Minimalism is a lens- a question that seeks to guide you to the self-acceptance of who you are, unburdened and not defined by the stuff you possess. Seth Godin reminds us that you should not live in a deficit and "measure yourself against someone (there’s always someone) who has more (there’s always more) than you do."
- As a college student, devoting time to study groups, gives back knowledge and time. Invest in the people in your closest rings.
- Look at your closet. Pick three items right now to move to a designated "give away" pile or box. Before doing anything else, locate the nearest shelter or food and clothing bank with open hours to bring your pile to after a week of downsizing this way. Invite your neighbor to join you. You will make connections and give back tangible amounts.
- Set a calendar reminder weekly to call a family member or old friend with whom you have fallen out of touch.
In the Bible, the book of Luke says, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."
With the realization and admittance that the first four tiers are met to a satiable amount, you can begin to give back through your availability, disentangled finances and unbound love and creativity for people.
my minimal story
(note: i have intended to tell this narrative in writing for a long time with the intentions of further explaining why i write what i write. This account had to be written in frenzied outbursts and remains in long-form, not ideally, for the sake of the plot's integrity. There are no experts in this story, and yet, everything remains as fact.)
In 2018, I experienced a life-changing paradigm shift.
I became a minimalist.
I began my search for the right college major as I approached high school graduation. I had always heard of the imperishability of a business degree and the high potential for someone to flourish in this field. Then I zeroed in on Accounting and Finance, the cash-cows of the business world.
*Median lifetime earnings (in millions) highlighting Accounting and Finance.
By the time I had researched the work details (a natural affinity for math helped with appeal) and metaphorically signed my soul away on the dotted line of the check I was preparing to work, blood, sweat and tears, for, I began planning my aspirations and five-year plan.
Then the waves came.
I was with a relative one week and was brought along to visit some of their colleagues. These people were very well off in the business world. Having recently decided to pursue the world these men inhabited, my proud relative was eager to display their kin's pursuits. The successful enterprisers were eager to impress.
They grossly underestimated how little it would take to impress a fledgling entrepreneur, so by the third tale of multi-million dollar corporate hostile takeovers they had orchestrated, I was feeling overkill. My ambition to start the climb fell as these executives and managers (words here which mean, "he who executes" and "controller of man"... loosely) started to stifle my potential and, against my will, loft my plans to impossible heights of affluence.
Suffice it to say, I was confused after this meeting. Disenfranchised with the future I had been confident in, I wondered: what drives my ambition?
Money had never been an extreme motivator for me. I had always had it and intended to live an average life with it like I had grown up seeing. Business fit in my ring-house being a natural networker and big-picture viewer. The corporate ladder I planned to mount came into view. At its peak was a ceiling that I viewed as destructible given a big enough hammer. I wouldn't stop climbing for anything. unchecked, I knew, I would push myself to achieve what I viewed as the "good life" and riches.
I realized in a moment, I did not want to be those men describing their corporate and personal lives in lavish detail. I did not want to be trapped by the captivation of promotions and corner offices. I broke down.
My entire life had been about winning with a capital 'W', and it would continue to be this way unless something changed.
Enter minimalism. I do not remember my first exposure to the community of minimalists across the country, but I remember the first time I heard the term itself.
Earlier in life, my mom pointed out something about myself that would go on to aid me in my pursuit of simplicity. When spring came one year, the project of "spring cleaning" became paramount in our home, as is tradition even to this day, and all my sisters, my dad and the dog were enlisted to serve. We were each assigned a list of things in our separate dwellings that needed to be considered for removal. Things like, old clothes, excess trophy's and memorabilia, toys and books that we no longer used and any other spare items or knick-knacks that belonged at a thrift store or lawn sale.
As I departed to my side of the home, I began to comb through the closet, shelves and shadows beneath the bed. After about ten minutes, I had a few things to give away, but I still came away feeling less accomplished than my sisters who toted boxes of items to impart. Feeling dejected and full of disappointment, I returned to my supervisor with head hung low to my meager loot.
Seeing me forlorn, my mom responded in love. "It's okay. You're just a little bit of a minimalist" she said. I thought of percentages and proportions, as I was prone to do at times, and realized that I had actually found more to clean out per capita than my sisters because of the already small size of my belongings.
My foundation for this new lifestyle had already been laid as I was partly wired this way.* Part of my biggest struggle at the time was my love of business and the trap I saw in it. I wanted to be in the corporate world quite badly but had come to a crossroads in the life of my personal philosophical groundings. How I pursued my goals would be impacted by the habits and paradigms I incorporated into my life. I needed this change.
*This is not to say some are made for minimalism while others are not, it just shows my tendency to exhibit the minimalist characteristic of dispensing with "stuff" more readily.
Diving into the research, the lifestyle, the downsizing- I found solace for the first time in the ideas circulated. I was able to reconcile the warring lives within me by keeping my focus on the parts of my life that would matter for longer than ten years. As I pursue endeavors of success, I constantly have to be aware of how and why I got to where I am today.
Reminding myself what I'd be if I wasn't who I am...
Some of the minimalist influencers and creatives early on who impacted my journey to this point: Matt D'Avella, TheMinimalists, Colin Wright, Joshua Becker.
I still am learning everyday what minimalism looks like as a complement to my faith and the views I have about life. A simple existence is not an easy pursuit these days and requires great intentionality, as I have found.
*Image sourced from the public domain.
filling the space
I'd like to address an adage whose implication's are as far-reaching as the implications of the law of gravity.
Historian and Professor Cyril Northcote Parkinson published an essay in The Economist in 1955 supporting his postulation that,
"work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." - The Economist
The significance in this idea expands to some ideas available for microscopic scrutiny (and I wouldn't be me without over-examining these few).
Watching shows like House Hunters or Flip or Flop on home improvement networks, we can see themes emerge in how many people purchase homes. You always hear the criteria for timid couples shopping for their starter home to be, none other than, their budget. They ask "how much can I get with the money I have?" They provide a little wiggle room for renovations and emergencies, but put their life savings into the biggest and best house an over-eager realtor can find for them.
Ignoring the norm that most of the "budgets" shown include the largest bank loan that can be received by these couples (with interest), homeowners have already lost value by forcing themselves to live in spaces too large.
See the
in the last 30 years (CNN).
CNN and many more surveys show that in the 30 years before 2013, home sizes have increased by almost 1000 square feet. All this in spite of the fact that family size decreased from 3.37 members in 1950 to 2.5 members in 2016, so that we are living with, on average, one less person in a home and one thousand more square feet of space from person to person. The implications of this fact upon the family is massive and leads to more than just surface level problems.
Constraint: How we fail to appreciate the finite nature of land and energy resources. Jimmy Carter talked about the energy problems facing America, and our growing homes only contribute to this coming crisis. North America has a limited number of space and an increasing number of inhabitants who consume land in economically inefficient ways that will impact the future potential growth of our expanding nation.
The "tiny house" movement, often ridiculed or glorified for only the true minimalists or "new ageists," it is not too extreme an option for those who are serious about using land and finances responsibly. (I remember a good portion of my growing up years wanting to live in a PODS storage shell.I think I wanted to be closer to the dog.) But more options exist for those willing to support reducing our ecological footprint and improving lifestyles, from designing and building their own conservative homes, to just buying smaller (which coincidentally amounts to cheaper).
Separation: A matter closer to the heart is the disconnectedness of families in homes whose halls echo the shouts of households stranded apart. Here is a huge contributing factor, I believe, to the destruction of family structure, whether you believe a desolation here is occurring or not. Given larger living spaces, even with working-from-home parents, a modern family can go about their day entirely at ease without passing another soul in their house.
Heat map of the "American Monster Home" by
.
Adrian Crook, owner of a video game consulting business and author of the blog 5Kids1Condo, examines how little of our home's social spaces like dining rooms or porch sitting areas Americans choose to use on a weekly basis. The excess space in a home and the declined family size shows us a trend in an opposite direction that upsets family dynamics and cannot be positive for the future of the communities that are the lifeblood of our society.
Stuff: Here we put Parkinson's Law, tweaked slightly, into use. "Things" accumulate so as to fill the space available to it. Joshua Fields Millburn, a co-writer of Everything that Remains, perfectly captures the social imperatives we believe to be subject to-
"... my first inclination was, of course, to purchase the things I still "needed" for my new place. You know, the basics: food, hygiene products, a shower curtain, towels, a bed, and umm... oh I need a couch and a matching leather chair and a love seat and a lamp and a desk chair and another lamp for over there, and oh yeah don't forget the sideboard that matches the desk.........." (many things later) "... And a rug for the entryway and bathroom rugs (bath mats?) and what about that one thing, that thing that's like a rug but longer? Yeah, a runner; I need one of those, and I'm also going to need..."
This is how we accumulate, not skeletons in the closet, but cardboard boxes in closets filled with "things" that we we had a use for at one point.
But wait... I gave up on learning how to cook the perfect Soufflé with this kit. And I guess I don't use this elliptical now that I have a gym membership. And when did I plan on acquiring the accompanying speaker for this stereo system? (I'm not guilt-free here in the slightest) We think these thoughts and continue living the same cluttered lives in our ever-growing, but empty homes.
***(Update- 17 June 2019: I fail to even mention the emergence of the $3.8 billion self-storage industry over the past 20 years that holds even more of our junkas the amount of "things" we own increasesyear by year)***
Playing devil's advocate, one could cite the growing number of telecommuters who work from in-home offices and workspaces like some articles suggest. A brief glance at the history of telecommuters, though, reveals that with only 4.5% of Americans currently telecommuting and using space in homes, an increase of only about 2.5% since the 1980's when the mode of working emerged.
I hold a deep conviction that the "stuff" we own amasses to the amount of space we let it have and a true belief that it is not "things" that add value to our lives, but purpose, connection and furthering our identity as humans. For this reason I write: not to hurl stones at those who have built walls in their comfortable American Dream homes, but to plead with the few ready for change. Those sick of falling into the societal norms that tell us how to live. The speech of commoners is what drives a movement to become a revolution.