KINFOLK – VOLUME 16 – THE ESSENTIALS ISSUE

KINFOLK VOLUME 16 mi cvrnkl do nosu přesně v tu chvíli, kdy jsem to nejvíce potřebovala. Číslo 16 pojednává o Esencialismu a podstatnostech věcí/činností našeho každodenního bytí. Radí nám, co je důležité si v dnešním hektickém životě udržet zuby nehty, a co raději nechat jít dál. Po mé úžasně odpočinkové dovolené na Bali, jsem se sebou byla vnitřně spokojená, jak uklidněná, srovnaná a bezstarostná jsem přijela. Nehonila jsem se, udělala si čas i na sebe a byla odpočatá. Mé slow-down období, ale netrvalo dlouho a já tradičně skončila s přeplněným diářem. Rodina a přátelé mi opět začali „vyčítat“ workoholismus a ulítanost takže jsem si jeden osudný večer řekla STOP a vzala si do ruky knížku. KINFOLK 16, mi opět otevřel oči a donutil se zamyslet nad podstatnostmi (těmi skutečnými!)

KINFOLK je psán krásnou angličtinou, tudíž je škoda jej překládat. Angličtináři jsme skoro všichni, takže v tom nebude problém.

Takže ještě jednou, co je to KINFOLK:

KINFOLK explores concepts and ideas related to the Slow movement by building that examine life’s essential qualities.

THE ESSENTIALS ISSUE

Living a life based on the essentials is less about minimalism and more about celebrating who and what we value most.

A SENSE OF BELONGING

Food, water and shelter may be the tenets of survival, but our need to connect and belong to a community is just as significant.

WORK

Nothing is more in need of stripping down to the fundamentals than our hectic work lives. Figuring out how to make a living while also staying sane is one of the secrets of a healthy work life.

THE ESSENTIAL

NON-ESSENTIALS

The heart of essentialism isn’t about asking how little we can live with, but determining what we simply cannot live without.

THE CLOUD APPRECIATION SOCIETY

There’s no need to head to a far-flung beach or a cabin in the woods to disconnect: You just need to look up.

The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.

You will be judged on what you promise and fail to deliver: caring for your mental health and physical well-being isn’t a sign of weakness: the loudest voice will never be heard: and keep your mouth shut until it’s a sure thing, and even then never brag or boast.

ESSENTIAL COMMUNITY

Community is about the experience of belonging. We’re in community each time we find a place where we belong. The word belong has two meanings. First and foremost, to belong is to be related to and a part of something. It’s membership, the experience of being at home in the broadest sense of the phrase. It’s the opposite of thinking that “wherever I am, I’ll be better off somewhere else,” Or “I’m still forever wandering, looking for that place where I belong.” The opposite of belonging is to feel isolated and always (all ways) on the margin, an outsider. To belong is to know, even in the middle of the night, that I’m among friends.

Community offers the promise of belonging and calls for us to acknowledge our interdependence. To belong is to act as an investor, owner and creator of this place. To be welcome, even if we are strangers. As if we came to the right place and are affirmed for that choice. To feel a sense of belonging is important because it will lead us from conversations about safety and comfort to other conversations, such as our relatedness and willingness to provide hospitability and generosity. Hospitability is the welcoming of strangers, and generosity is an offer with no expectation of return. These are two elements that we want to nurture as we work to create, strengthen and restore our communities. This will not occur in a culture dominated by isolation, and its correlate, fear.

MIND-SET OF WESTERN CULTURE

This context-that life is a set of problems to be solved-may actually limit any chance of the future being different from past. The interest we have in problems is so intense that at some point we take our identity from those problems. Without them, it seems like we wouldn’t know who we are as a community.

ESSENTIAL TALKS

LISTENING

Instead of politely nodding while you wait for your chance to speak, try truly listening. It takes more deliberate concentration than simply keeping your lips sealed.

Listening takes practice, but once you’ve mastered it, thinking and effort fall away and are replaced by the totality of sharing a life-bracing moment. That’s why listening doesn’t mean a conversation is half-silent. Instead, it has verve. Neither party feels diminished for talking-and we respond more thoughtfully in return.

SILENCE

Search the self-help section and you will find an abundance of advice on how to keep a conversation flowing. However, when we rush to fill the gaps, we often miss something profound.

Silence is important, honest and intimate-and that’s precisely why it has the power to make us squirm. When we do final muster the courage to let the seconds pass uninterrupted, we can share something far more valuable than whatever anecdote that might have come before it. We stop performing as ourselves in order to simply be ourselves, and we allow our company to do the same. Instead of viewing silence as a sign of boredom or disinterest, we could see it for what it is, the ultimate expression of acceptance. Sitting beside another person, lost in private thought, is perhaps the highest compliment we can pay them.

“That’s when you know you’ve found somebody special-when you can just shut up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence”

HOW TO BECOME AN ESSENTIALIST

In a time when there are more questions than answers, more choices than decisions and more opportunities than hours in a day, many of us are exhausted from trying to do it all. As productive as it makes us feel, pursuing too many things can leave us stressed, anxious and drained instead of turning us into multitasking superheroes. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Becoming an essentialist means to know how to tackle the work-life challenge and know to do more with less.

Many people struggle to decide what to say yes to since we have so many options. How can we learn to identify what is most important for us? The options in our lives are increasing faster than our ability to make selections. The choices are exponential, so it’s about identifying really selective criteria. We should ask: “Do I absolutely love it?”, and if the answer is no, then we should give it away.

People should really ask “What is essential to me?” and then in order to achieve that, “Do I need to give up other things that are less important so I can achieve this?” It’s not just less-it’s less, but better. Really, people should ask “What’s so important that I’d give up everything in order to achieve it?” When you know the answer to that question, then you have something fantastic. When you are willing to give up those nonessential things-even if they’re good, even if they’re interesting-that’s the beginning.

We regret living a life based on other people’s expectations of us, and we regret spending too much time at work and not enough time with our family and the key friends in our lives. But we can realign our routines now to celebrate that.

The word priority: it came into English language in the 1400s, and it was a singular, because that’s what it means! It means the first thing, the prior thing, the most important thing. Then ostensibly it stayed singular for the next 500 years, and only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term to priorities. What!? What does this word mean now? Can we really have dozen first most important things? You need to take on whatever that priority is and do it. If you try to do 24 different things simultaneously and treat them all as equally important, you won’t get any of them done. And so in that little language, we can see a lot of how this madness has taken over. It’s changing the way we think. It’s warped reality.

EVERYTHINGISM

It’s this paradox that success can become a catalyst for failure if it leads to the undisciplined pursuit of more, as it often does.

BEING BORED

Being bored is good, we have to think about what to do next. We have to face boredom so we can actually learn how to create, because there’s no creativity until there’s boredom.

Nowadays we leave very little time for doing nothing, but creating the space to imagine and think should be just as important. How can we learn to do less and play more?

Decluttering and tidying up frees us of excess and allows us to refocus on what’s actually important.

ESSENTIALISM MEANING

It means undoing the clutter and getting to the core, paring back to the bone and achieving authenticity, simplicity and purity.

THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF LIFE.

Knowledge. It’s one of the most important tools for building sustainability and establishing social equality, and cultural and life skills are necessary for anyone who want to have an impact on society.

HOW IS COFFEE ESSENTIAL TO EVERYDAY LIFE?

“To me coffee is life. It’s a bridge to many wonderful things. It wakes you up, provides fuel to drive the day, cultivates friendships and is good for your metabolism.

WHY DO WE DO THE WORK WE DO?

We should want to give back to society without expecting anything in return. No matter how smart we are and how wealthy of a society we live in, it is meaningless unless we help one another.