Downsize Your Life: Why Less is More | Rita Wilkins | TEDxWilmingtonWomen

I have a confession to make when I owned a 5,000 square-foot home in the country I had 11 closets and 9 rolling wrecks filled with clothes can anyone relate filled with clothes and I had convinced myself that having all of this stuff really made me happy in fact I was drowning in my big house my life was spiraling out of control the big house the yard the maintenance the upkeep the expense at the time I saw no way out and I was afraid it took a trip to a third-world country 8,000 miles from here for me to really rethink what mattered in my life when my son Kevin who now lives in the Congo lived in Senegal he was serving in the Peace Corps at the time I went to visit him and excuse me okay I went to visit him in Senegal and we took this trip it was it was a grueling 24 hour trek via every imaginable mode of transportation back of a pickup truck cars with no working gauges buses with holes in the floor and we finally arrived in his little village where we were so warmly greeted by the by the villagers I was also humbled by the fact that they had swept the dirt paths clean for us within a minute the village elder scooped up a live scrawny chicken and presented it to us a gift I knew in my head in my heart was of extreme value that evening his African mother prepared a beautiful dinner for 15 people that included that little chick and while serving the dinner she pushed the better part of the chicken toward my son and me in that moment I realized these villagers have so few possessions but they were filled with joy and I wanted that several weeks later I got on the plane to return home and I realized how profoundly impacted I was by what I had experienced a few over the next couple of years I started asking myself these questions that really changed my life just my stuff make me happy if I buy more stuff will I be happier what really gives me joy why wouldn't I want more of that and did my life have to continue on this downward spiral or could I choose to actually create a life that I loved after all for 40 years as an interior designer I've been designing other people's lives all over the country why not design my own in December 2015 at a Christmas party in my home a gentleman asked Rita how much longer are you going to live in this big house by yourself I said oh and when you're from now I'm gonna be living in a small apartment in Center City Philadelphia I have no idea where those words came from but in that moment I realized that my words created the future that I would live into January 2016 i sat on the living room floor of my big home I looked up and I cried I had no idea where to begin so rather than making downsizing a project which is always harder I decided to make it a game so I called family and friends many of them are here right now and enrolled them in the possibility of helping me attack just one area of my home at a time for just four or five hours on the saturday or sunday so week by week for an entire year they helped me disperse stuff that I had collected over many many years downsizing is not without emotions at one point I found my father's alarm clock and I could hear him winding it to get up early to provide for our family as my relationship to stuff changed the process got easier and easier and what I realized was things didn't make me happy a year later Here I am senator City Philadelphia my beautiful little jewel box apartment I moved from my 5000 square foot home in the country to 867 square feet in Center City I gave away 95% of my possessions to people who needed them or wanted them and I'm living on 5% of what I want sound I have all I want and all I need and I've never been happier I'm living that simple joy filled life that I experienced in Senegal I'm living in alignment with what matters most to me more time with family and friends more resources more freedom to travel to learn to actually live the life that I designed for myself a ripple effect of downsizing is that I also downsized my company's work week for a better work/life balance we now work three days and we play four and let me do that sooner and we actually grew the company by 27 percent last quarter so why might you choose to live with less so you can live more my challenge to you is to with your mind and with your heart think of possibility and ask yourself these simple questions is there an area of your life that is totally out of control are you willing to disrupt that part of your life that's preventing you from living more and what's one thing that you will do today to begin living the life that you love thank you [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 1,003,612

Rating: 4.8199782 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Design, Freedom, Happiness, Money, Motivation, Personal growth, Simplicity, Time, Travel

Id: eoFPJk4HsgE

Length: 7min 59sec (479 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2017