RingoSo I decided on a whim I’m going to actively try to spend the new year focusing on stoicism and minimalism. Basic overall goal is to cut my spending down to half by the end of the year, reduce my actives to just the ones that help improve me as a person, and and spend each day actively working on specific habits and journaling my progress on it every night. How did I come to the decision of trying to radically alter my behavior? On a whim, like pretty much every other major change in my life.
8 years ago I decided to go vegetarian for a year just to see if I could. I joined a cross country team and dedicated my life to running for 2 years just because I like the coach as a person. Hell the only reason I started fighting is because I was looking for ways of not thinking about a break up. I’m not sure why I make these spontaneous decisions and even less sure why after making them I try to double down and force myself to invest in actions I put less thought into than I do when deciding on dinner. Often times I fail to stick with them. I would guess the ratio of “successfully completed” ideas to abandoned is 1:100 at the low end, but still I keep making these pronouncements and for a little while dedicate myself to the pursuit of them.
I hope this is one that I complete. I think it will lead to some great growth emotionally, philosophically, and financially for me just in the trying and I suspect there will be some unexpected moments of Satori unrelated to the scope of the project. I rarely do deep dives into subjects, so I’m looking forward to seeing what changes come from not just sampling the surface of a topic. Both the minimalist movement and the related revival of interest in the Stoics have pulled me over the past half decade so will this experience re-enforce my naive appreciation for them or cause a rejection of the rejection of the material? Only one way to tell, to finish the “experiment” for lack of better word(or handy thesaurus).
I think I have a decent chance. I’ve managed to come up with an overall yearly plan, some daily activities, and slowly reducing spending plan based on my current income and spending habits. While there are always unexpected costs and life changes, I hope to be able to provide some flexibility as I learn better habits. My biggest concern is that as the year drags on there are months where my budget is pushing the edge of my limit or strained well beyond it due to my life’s passion of Armored Combat. I may have to either adjust goals as I go or actively decide to reduce voluntary travel to just a few out of region events. I have at least the first quarter before I have to worry about that though.
So, what are the details of this plan? I’ve based it off 4 sources. 2 minimalist, both practical and involved and 2 stoic, both more idealistic and meditative. The first stoic is the 366 day stoic challenge, which is simply, read an entry on stoicism, meditate on it, and journal on it. The second is also meditative, but is more about reflecting on the actions of the day. Every day, answer these 4 questions
- What bad habit did I curb today?
- How am I better?
- Were my actions just?
- How can I improve?
The 2 minimalist sources are more involved. 1 is based off a shopping ban I found here. I created my own list of allowed purchases, banned purchases, and explicit exceptions.I hope to record every purchase I make for itemization at the end of the year so I can see exactly what I can live on, but that is a stretch goal. I also set goals of reducing my spending to 2k a month in quarter 1, 1.8k in quarter 2, 1.6k in quarter 3, and 1.4k in quarter 4, which should have me spending less than 50% of my income by years end. Considering this is the goal my Father has been saying I should have been shooting for since I moved out, I think even actually attempting it is a great first step. The real problem here is I need to buy at least 2 new armor pieces in the next year and possibly 1 European trip plus a few cross country trips. I’m unsure how I will pull that off. For now though my shopping list looks like this.
Allowed shopping
- Groceries
- Toiletries
- Armor Repair
- Cleaning supplies
- Physical Health Services
- Mental Health Services
- Recurring Audio listening
- Recurring Cloud storage services
- ACL/SCA local events
- Gifts for family and friends
Banned shopping
- Clothes and shoes
- Books
- Toy and Game supplies
- Electronics and apps
- Movies, tv, and streaming apps.
- Household items(furniture, candles, curtains, etc)
Explicit exceptions
- 1 trip to Nevada
- 1 trip to Utah
- 1 trip to Europe
- 1 trip to Penn
- 1 Pair of Gauntlets
- 1 new chest piece
The last one is more about reducing habits. I can’t find the full article now, but it was radical in what it wanted people to reduce. I have culled the list significantly and tried to add specific practical behaviors I intend to limit. The main goal is to reduce the stress and hectic lifestyle I’ve cultivated in the past year. In order to accomplish this I intend to try purging as much as I can both physically and more abstractly. Responsibilities and commitments that aren’t producing value will be cut and instead of filling with more I will leave space to breathe. This has never worked for me in the past decade but I’m hoping as part of an overall process I’ll have better results. My goals for that look like this.
- Schedule Less.
- Add no new recurring items.
- Take 1 night a week to myself
- Take 1 day a month to myself
- Argue Less.
- Don’t say no, ask, “why do you believe that?”
- Store Less.
- At the beginning of the year, cleanse house, car, and work desk.
- Spring equinox, cleanse
- Birthday Cleanse
- Halloween Cleanse
- “Waste” Less.
- Facebook at the beginning of the day and end of day. Not during
- ‘ Messenger too.
So that’s my plan to reduce and refocus in the new year. What resolutions do you have and what plan have you made to accomplish them?