Create an Upper Limit
What are your limits?
Observe your co-workers and friends long enough, and you'll see their limits. I've heard and seen all sorts of limits through observation lately:
"I don't worry about my weight unless it passes xxx pounds."
"I never have more than two glasses of wine."
"We love to travel but make one long family trip a year now instead of taking a few short weekends away."
"The ideal house for us would be $xxxx so we can afford the property taxes that accompany it."
It's romantic to imagine a life without limits, but I think limits create an environment for freedom to flourish.
One of my most cherished conversations in the past year happened around our dining table. We hosted some business executives for dinner, and my husband posed the question*: "If you could solve just one world problem, which one would it be, and why?"
The answers came in from our guests of varying faith or no-faith backgrounds: homelessness, global warming, racism, food insecurity, gender-based violence...the list went on and on.
Then one of our thoughtful guests who'd been quiet a long time spoke up: "I feel that if anyone in his or her life just identified what is their appropriate level of "enough-ness", we could tackle many of these issues we're discussing right now."
He's right.
To be sure, each of those issues and many others that matter to us are significantly more complex than I'm expressing here, but our guest was accurate in stating that having a level of "enough" would allow each of us to calibrate our lives towards a deeper sense of freedom and a greater capacity for giving back.
So let's take his beautiful observation and bring it home for you right now.
How much time watching TV is enough for you each day or week?
What's the upper limit of monthly household spending you'll do (saving, investing, and donating the rest)?
How many cups of coffee is enough per day?
What's the appropriate number of pairs of shoes for you to own?
How many days will you work each month?
Only you know the answer for you.
The point here isn't to become rigid; it's to stir your brain up in thinking about excesses you can trim from your life to simplify it.
Here's to your freedom!
Dana
* If you're ever in the Byers family home for dinner, you can expect us to ask questions to get to know each other better. It's such a part of our family fabric that my kids picked up the habit, and their friends know to expect my kids to coach and question them now, too. 😁
