By Smarty Guest Blogger Julie Tassy, owner, Sercie and Ella B. Candles
Not that you need one more thing on your list. We’re only a few weeks into our new routines, our 21-day fixes, our “Make my abs great again” mission, our new sales and team-building goals for the year, and we’re tired. Who has time to read a book?
I can’t decide if I fit my life. I feel too big for my skinny jeans and too small to tackle my roles as wife, mother, business owner, friend, sister, daughter… you get it. I’m just one person. One person who kept adding things to my job description.
I am in a love/hate relationship with excess. I like more. I like bulk. I like Costco. But I don’t have a garage, and cabinet space is limited in our old ranch house. Where is all of this supposed to go? And, even though it’s a great deal, if half of your produce rots before you can use it, is it really that great? More is just more of a headache. More stuff to throw away.
We keep adding without taking away. Buying new and not getting rid of old. And before we know it, we feel like Mama in the Berenstain Bears, shouting “Too Much Stuff!” Because our lives are as limited as the 1960s closets at the Tassy house. I guess they didn’t buy in bulk when our house was built.
This year, I feel a call to simplicity. Taking things off my list that other, capable, intelligent people within our company can and will do. It’s not a loud voice calling, but a whisper from my heart that longs for peace more than applause. I don’t need to hear people say, “Wow, how do you do it all?” Because I can’t.
And then this book showed up on my radar. Two of my friends were reading it, so I ordered a copy for myself, and wow. Wow. It shed light on what the real issue is. I’m striving for perfection, and it’s keeping me from the life I really want.
The same week that Amazon delivered this book, I was given an opportunity to close my booth at Cotswold Marketplace. I say given, because it was a gift of simplifying my life. I hesitated, because I don’t like to move forward and let go. But, a lot has happened since I started as a vendor there. My little personalized gift business sprouted a Neighborhood candle line that has grown into a real business. Ella B. Candles now employs 20 people and has a national presence in almost 1,000 retail stores. And I just can’t do it all. Duh. And neither can you. So, I’m receiving the gift of simplifying.
What are you holding onto, because you can’t imagine letting it go? Even though it’s dragging you down and making you cranky, you keep clutching it. It’s a pacifier that brings you comfort, but it is also silencing you and making it impossible for you to open up and communicate with the people who matter the most. Let it go. Maybe it’s the pursuit of a perfect body, a perfect house, perfect kids, perfect balance, a perfect dinner party, or even a perfect spiritual life.
Present over Perfect is challenging me, and I hope you will let it challenge you.
From now until January 31, Julie’s booth at Cotswold Marketplace, SERCIE, is 25% off. Stock up on Volcano candles, Archipelago Body Care, greeting cards and gifts.
