TranscribeMe Audio Answer
TranscribeMe Audio Answer
Started asking myself these questions that really changed my life. Does my stuff make me happy? If I buy more stuff will I be happier? What really gives me joy? Why won't I want more of that? And did my life have to continue on this downward spiral or could I choose to actually create a life that I loved? After all, for 40 years, as an interior designer I've been designing other people's lives all over the country, why not design my own. In December 2015 at a Christmas party in my home, a gentleman asked, "Rita how much longer are you going to live in this big house by yourself?".
I said, "oh! in one year from now I'm gonna be living in a small apartment in Center City Philadelphia". I have no idea where those words came from but in that moment I realized that my words created the future that I would live into. January 2016, I sat on the living room floor of my big home, I looked up and I cried, I had no idea where to begin. So rather than making downsizing, a project, which is always harder I decided to make it a game. So I called family and friends many of them are here right now and enrolled them in the possibility of helping me attack just one area of my home at a time for just four or five hours on the Saturday or Sunday. So week by week for an entire year, they helped me disperse stuff that I'd collected over many many years. Downsizing is not without emotions. At one point I found my father's alarm clock and I could hear him winding it, to get up early, to provide for our family. As my relationship to stuff changed, the process got easier and easier and what I realized was, things didn't make me happy. A year later here I am, Center City, Philadelphia, my beautiful little jewel box apartment. I moved from my 5000 sq.ft home in the country to 867 sq.ft in Center City.
I gave away 95% of my possessions to people who needed them or wanted them and I'm living on 5% of what I once owned. I have all I want and all I need and I've never been happier. I'm living that simple joy-filled life that I experienced in Senegal. I'm living in alignment with what matters most to me. More time with family and friends. More resources, more freedom, to travel, to learn to actually live the life that I designed for myself. A ripple effect of downsizing is that I also downsized my company's work week for a better work-life balance. We now work three days and we play four. And when I do that sooner and we actually grew the company by 27% last quarter
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