I Quit!!!

 

In my ongoing endeavor to simply my life, improve my quality of life and just enjoy myself more I have quit doing a lot of things and I have no regrets about any of it.  Here is a list of many of the things I’ve stopped doing. 

I quit: 

• Coloring my hair or wearing makeup every day.  I wash my face and put on moisturizer and I’m good to go! 
• Using a hair dryer to dry my hair when I get out of the shower.  I also rarely use my flat iron and I no longer own a curling iron. 
• Painting my nails.  I gave up salon nails twenty plus years ago and as time has gone on I no longer enjoy doing my nails at home so I just keep them neatly trimmed and filed. 
• Getting my hair cut at the salon.  The pandemic forced me to figure out how to do my own haircuts at home and as it turns out I like my hair more now than I ever did before. 
• Owning a lot of clothing, shoes and accessories.  I don’t need a lot to look nice and be adequately clothed for a variety of occasions, therefore I got rid of A LOT of stuff this past year.  I streamlined my wardrobe considerably and no longer own a pile of clothing and shoes I do not need, want or am comfortable wearing.  I even streamlined my jewelry, purses, scarves, etc.
• Ironing.  I no longer own clothes that require an iron.  In fact I only use the iron for my sewing and crafting projects. 
• K-cups.  The price of them has gone up substantially in the last few years so I decided I didn’t want to waste my money on them anymore and gave away my K-cup coffeemaker. 
• Dieting.  I no longer count carbs, calories or grams of anything.  I eat a healthy low carb diet and let whatever happens, happen.  I don’t subscribe to fad diets of any kind.  I simply choose to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. 
• Subscriptions services.  I don’t have Netflix, Prime or any other type of subscription service as there are tons of TV and music options available to me for free.  I truly feel I don’t need any more reasons to sit and watch TV in order to “get my money’s worth”.  Free options are more than enough. 
• Over scheduling.  I no longer accept invitations, just because I’m invited and I don’t volunteer to do things when I really don’t have the time or desire to do them.  Therefore, the tasks I’m trying accomplish don’t get shelved or put on the back burner in place of someone else’s agenda. 
• Crowds.  I don’t enjoy large venues so I no longer attend those types of functions.  I also don’t enjoy weddings so I stopped going to them and will politely decline and send a card with a gift card enclosed instead. 
• Accepting blame for everything that goes wrong in life.  This has been one of my greatest challenges, but I’ve managed to look at situations much more objectively.  If I am truly the one at fault I’ll own it and apologize, but I refuse to accept responsibility for other people’s thoughts, actions and behaviors. 
• Paying attention to the news.  I’ll give it a cursory glance from time to time, but I don’t focus a lot of attention on the media and take 95% of it with a grain of salt.  I have come to realize that the major majority of what goes on in this world has very little affect on me on a daily basis and that most of what is reported is greatly exaggerated or completely false. 
• Being so hard on myself.  I’ve often chastised myself for not doing enough.  If I want to take a day off from being productive or doing projects I allow myself to do that more than now.  And if I make a mistake I give myself grace and I call it a “learning moment” rather than a time to chew myself out or feel bad about what has happened.  I remind myself there is nothing so bad it couldn’t be worse and it is not the end of the world, as my grandmother would say.
• Caring so much.  I no longer exhaust myself caring about things I cannot control or what others may think about me.  People will think what they are going to think regardless of anything I have to say about it.  I can also do the world a lot more good simply by being the best human I can. 
• Hurrying.  I’m no longer parenting and I’m no longer an employee so I now have the luxury of slowing down and taking my time.  I’ve stopped trying to multi task on a regular basis as it is no longer a requirement of my daily life.  I actually do have time to stop and smell the roses.

 

These are some of the things I’ve quit doing.  How about you?  What are some of the things you used to do or maybe still do, that you now realize you no longer need to.  What did you quit?  Or, what do you need to quit?