living simply

I have been doing lots of thinking about the verse "Aspire to Lead a Quiet Life".  I would like to ask you to stop and think about it too.  What does this mean to you?  How do you achieve this? 

Since loosing my job in August 2010, my life has changed...dramatically in some ways.  There were things I did before that I absolutely have no time for now, largely because I no longer have a set "work schedule".  This might not make sense to you - and it actually was hard for me to accept that I accomplished more when I had to be at the office from 9am-6pm, 5 days a week, and yet I still ran a business and worked on it evenings and weekends and got tons of things done at home!   How could just removing something like that make my life now unorganized and chaos?  The difference is I work when there is work and when I am not "working" I am working on marketing, creating business blog posts, brainstorming ideas, cultivating connections, attending meetings/events, doing networking, reading business books/blogs/articles, educating myself on things I want to know more about in or relating to my field and aspects that can help my clients better their businesses, etc...my "work life" is now filled spent on developing my business and fulfilling the needs of my clients.  The clock can say 2.30pm and I realize I haven't eaten any lunch...or 8pm and I have noway thought of dinner.  It will take me some time to get into a new routine (really let me say I'm still working at trying to figure that "new" routine out).  How do you develop a routine?  A useful working routine?

So in my quest for creating a routine that works for me, some things have been entering my thinking.  There are things that we add to our lives to make things simpler, but I am finding a lot of these only make it more complicated.  "Sign up for our weekly coupons to be delivered to your email"...great, but when I have 50 of these come in each day???  "Want to learn more, sign up for our daily/weekly email"...great, now I have 300 unread emails in my inbox and counting that I have no time to read.  Nice (not really).  These are just two examples, both relating to emails, but you get where my thoughts are going.  I am not spending money. I need to make money.  I have way to much stuff, yah lovely stuff, but stuff I will never use as long as I am a working woman.  You say, give me an example:  I haven't cross-stitched since I lived at home, 14 years ago this summer.  It is time to get my life molded around the life I currently live, not a dream world I want to live.  One that fits me.  No husband.  No kids.  No extras.  The basics. 

What do I mean by basics?  Eat.  Sleep.  Work.  Faith.

As I look at the basics, I know it will take time to get my dreams, vision and goals into a perspective thru "The Wheel of Life" (a concept by Zig Ziglar), in order: 
Family & Friends...Social (Fun & Recreation)...Career...Financial...Spiritual...Health/Physical...Intellectual
Not necessarily in that order, just not all this other paraphernalia.  

This means I am going to have to make some changes and overhaul some items that I no longer can fit into the "Life of Misty" to achieve my quest to have a simply quite and peaceful life.  That is the facts...but how will I achieve this?  What will go?  What will stay?  I am still working on how to and what to change, but I know CHANGE is happening and the change will take time. 

I am instilling a lot of one word right now, No. 

Share your thoughts...What is a quiet and peaceful life mean to you?  How are you achieving this?