My Writings. My Thoughts.
The Year of Addition by Subtraction
Posted by shegeek on January 2nd, 2010
Resolutions-schmezalutions
I do not believe in New Year’s resolutions. I haven’t had any for as long as I can remember. This year is no different.
Resolutions usually fail because people think they need something major like a new year in order to make changes in their lives. If you aren’t resolved and committed to the change it doesn’t matter that it’s a new year. You will likely fail. I also believe that incremental changes are often the best way to make changes. You just sort of sneak in the changes over time so that you don’t realize you’re changing and don’t fight the changes.
As far as the Geek Household, we are always adjusting and tweaking things on our gadgets, our computers, our vehicles and even in our lives. We periodically stop and take a look around at the landscape and say, “Hey, Hon, don’t you think this would look better over here?” We view our lives as iterative and we are always working to make our lives better.
Subracting the Negatives
We’ve been overwhelmed for a while. We are always going somewhere, doing something, playing catch up. We never seem to have enough time to get things done and we are always exhausted. In the fall some things happened that made us take pause. These weren’t major life-altering things, but they were turns in relationships – business and personal – that shook things up a bit and forced us into a cycle of evaluation. It seemed more than coincidental because we weren’t likely to make any changes to what we were doing unless we were forced to do so.
A few weeks ago we heard from a friend we hadn’t spoken to in a while. James recounted one of these situations to him and our friend said, “Nothing like addition by subtraction.” Lightbulb moment. We realized then that we were definitely in a cycle of ending relationships, getting rid of the negative, in order to have more – more time, more energy, greater focus on more important and fruitful endeavors. Addition by subtraction.
So now what?
Our 2010 is not scripted. We don’t have an grandiose plans or major projects on the horizon. It’s looking like a house-cleaning kind of year; a transition year, I suppose. We are eliminating all the negativity that we’ve been dealing with and emphasizing a lot of positive things that have been languishing. We have given far too much energy to the negative and focused too much on dying relationships, dying partnerships, dead ends and things that have just outlived their purpose in our lives. 2010 will be a year in which we simplify and refocus on the things that matter.
So what matters? Family first. To us family includes our close friends because family isn’t blood; family is love. We are focusing on our relationships because life is fragile. We only have one chance to do this thing called life. No one has a headstone that says, “Wished he had spent more time at the office”. We will share life with those we love before all else because at the end of the day those relationships are vital and worthwhile.
After that our focus is on what comes next for our business. We love what we do but we need to rethink where we are going with our business. In the end little may change, but we have to look at everything before deciding.
We don’t plan to take on anything new because that would cloud where we are going. We have some personal projects to work out and a few others that need to be flushed. Other than that, we just want to enjoy our time together.
Happy New Year to all who happen upon our happy little virtual home. May your 2010 be all that you dream and all that you desire.
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Categories: Commentary
Tags: Addition by subtraction, Less is more, resolutions, simplify
