We are letting society tell us that we need more things that are bigger, better, and faster; yet the length of a day continues to be 24 hours and there still are only 7 days in a week. This creates a great deal of stress and people are living day after day after day under pressure that they, themselves, are putting on themselves, based on society’s influence. It just doesn’t have to be that way. You can do yourself a world a good when you look to simplify your life and rid yourself of unneeded clutter and responsibilities.
I tell people all the time that most of us have something that we’re really good at. Sometimes it’s a marketable skill and we can make a living doing it. Sometimes it’s just more of a fun thing and we can at least enjoy ourselves doing it. We also generally have a couple of other things that we’re pretty good at. Often we make our livings at one of those and have fun with the others. Generally, folks have a wide variety of other things that they can do at at least a passing level and these are generally the things we need to do on a regular basis just to keep our lives in some semblance of order. Then there are generally some tasks that we are absolutely horrible at doing. We have no talent and no interest in the area and no matter how many times we’ve tried, we don’t like it and we’re not good at it. When these are required things, they can sometimes be the things that just suck the life out of us. We have got to try to recognize as many of those as we can and simplify our lives in those areas.
For example, a woman may have had an absolutely wonderful cook for a mother, yet the daughter doesn’t actually have any skill or talent in the kitchen. She may have read books, tried different cooking methods, tried to watch others, and yet, the food she makes is just routinely bad. Where that woman can run into trouble is to continually force herself to make and eat bad food all the time. This is an added stressor she simply does not need. Just admit you can’t cook and let someone else do it for you. Buy frozen dinners or fresh prepared foods. Eat in restaurants. Trade chores with a friend who will cook for you. There are options you can use but you won’t seek those options until you just admit to yourself that it’s something you’re not good at. How will you get the money for all those expensive options like eating out or buying deli food? Use something that you are good at to make money. You will be more efficient and will enjoy it more.
If you are not good at balancing your checkbook, spend a little money to pay an accountant to help you and spend the time you would have spent with your calculator enjoying a good book or shooting hoops with your kids or your friends. If you get lost finding new places, admit it and spend a few moments looking up directions on the Internet and use all the time you would have spent lost visiting with friends or doing an extra errand or two.
In summary, we make our lives more difficult when we continually fight against our weaknesses. If you are simply bad at doing something, there is no shame in admitting it and compensating for it by using one of your strengths!
