Ever Transitional

Personal Picture // June 2014

Life is always changing, ephemeral, transitional. Japanese call it "Mujô", the impermanence, the uncertainty, the transiency of life. Cherry flowers which scatter at the wind right after they blossom. The sound of waves. The smell of freshly cut grass. Seasons, holidays, our student years...

On Inspiration & Identity

Inspirational display in downtown LA // Personal Picture

After reading Amanda's latest blog post on curating and jumping on bandwagons, I wondered about inspiration, where our tastes and aesthetics come from - more broadly, what affects our life choices. Does inspiration build our identity, or does imitating other people or keeping up with the Joneses make us drift away from who we really are?

Level Up Mini Challenge: Go Book Yourself

Personal picture (iPhone snap) at the Last Bookstore

 Here is a new Level Up mini-challenge for you today: books. As I experiment in various growth categories, I have decided to share some of these with you, have they been useful to me. The Go Book Yourself mini-challenge, which name is inspired from this site, is an experiment on the mental/spiritual area of level up.

Time is Money

Rouge & Cake aux Epices // Personal photo

Ever since I was little, I heard this expression: "time is money". Usually in the context of "don't make me waste my time, you are making me lose money". It is a strong symbol of our society: it means the best use of our time is to make more money. Anything else is a waste of time. Well, I beg to differ.

The Spiral Upwards

La Grande Roue de Jaude // personal picture (December 2013)

Whereas it can be difficult to kickstart new habits and integrate them in our daily life, another challenge, maybe even bigger, is to actually manage to maintain them on the long term. I am still in the process of shaping my daily habits within the 4 level up areas, but among the things I have learned from my past failures, I think the most important one is what I decided to call the Spiral Upwards.

Autonomy and Life Choices

The Canadian Skies // Personal picture, 2013.

I read a very thought provoking article over at Raptitude this week. David explains the life lessons he learned by leaving his day job and working as a self employed "workforce escapee". One of his points in particular made me think: he says we are trained to have bosses, to let society guide us through rails and we don't know how to "take the wheel" of our own life. Without going as far as quitting our day jobs, what does it mean for our autonomy and life choices as human beings?

On Kickstarting Harder Habits

Source: tumblr

As I entered Spring Cleaning time, I made a little round-up of my past habits and resolutions, and noticed there were two kinds of habits - the daily, "low energy" ones I carry on daily without giving it much thought, and the harder, "high energy" ones I can't seem to apply as easily. Here are some tips to help kickstarting those harder habits sitting in the to-dos.

Beauté Fatale

Source: tumblr

After the debate around Dove's Real Beauty marketing campaign, I kept thinking about the debate of beauty, body image, society's standards and its consequences on women's well-being and self esteem. After reading further articles and books, here are a few more thoughts on body issues, self esteem and the beauty myth.

December Introspection

Personal Photo

As the years stretches to its end, December seems to be the best month for a bit of contemplation and introspection. I find it to be a very good way to wrap up the year, take away some good moments and learnings, and prepare the way for 2014.

The Geek Shelf

Source: tumblr

When I was a student in Japanese language and culture, I was invited to many classmates's room for drinks and games. And I remember that, in every one of these rooms, there was what I came to call a "Geek Shelf". This made me think about the relationship between our collection of items and our identity.

Who do I Want to Be?

Personal photo // A typical view of my home region "Auvergne"

The life simplification I started two years ago is deeply linked to a search for identity and authenticity. I noticed there are (at least) three facets to one's identity: who I think I am, who others think I am, and who I want to be. Today, I'd like to speak a bit more about "who I want to be".

Improvise

Personal photo - Hotel staircase in Genoa, Italy

As a part of company training, we had an improvisation class at work last week. I had already engaged in improvisation lessons at my acting classes a few years ago, but this time, the exercise made me think about life, and the balance between taking the lead and accepting to let go.

Level Up

Source: tumblr

Last week-end, I have run 10 kilometers at the caritative run Odysséa in the Vincennes castle. It was a great achievement for me, as, after years of thinking "sports isn't for me", I started training in August 2012 with this objective in mind. This achievement made me think of how important growth is in our life equilibrium, and contentment.

In Moderation

Personal Photo

I purchased a digital camera. When I told my mother, she replied "A new camera? That's not very minimalist of you". (Yes, she reads my blog and knows everything about these big questions and small theories of mine). Which made me think about my behaviours and choices, as actions say way more about a person than words and writings.

Body Image: Letting Go

Source: Isabelle Bertolini

As I started simplifying my life and closet, questioning my style led to many more questions about body image, identity, self esteem and confidence. Lately, I've been digging around the concept of "letting go", and I'd like to introduce it on my blog by discussing body image.

Positive Comparison

Completely unrelated image - Source

I have written a post on comparison a few months back, explaining how I think we should fight our tendency to compare ourselves to each other, past or future situations to be happier. I still believe this to be very true, for comparison is a great source of unhappiness as it makes us dissatisfied with our current situation. But I have read an interesting piece about the benefits of comparison, that I wanted to share with you.

Self Esteem Experiment

Self made picture from my mini-Palace

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel"

-- Steve Furtick

I don't remember if I have already shared this quote on the blog, but I find it so true to most self-esteem issues, I thought I was an appropriate introduction to this post. I would like to share with you today, a little experiment that I did several years ago, very simple but marking the beginning of my self-esteem's improvement.

"Real Beauty"

Source: Dove

Jess's Classics 2.0 post made me want to explore the subject of body image a little further. Is society subconsciously imposing a standard on us via media channels surrounding us, or even peer remarks on our bodies, as I explored in my last post on the subject? Gathering material on the subject to form the most accurate opinion possible, I stumbled upon Dove's marketing campaign, "Real Beauty".

If You Want To Lose Weight...

Source: Isabelle Bertolini - Cargo Collective

If you want to lose weight, you'd better skip the cheese.

This is what I was said during Easter week-end, one day at lunch. I don't feel offended at all by this remark, and I think the person who told me this didn't mean any harm - and I did eat cheese nonetheless -  but this made me think. About weight in our society, body image, and standards.

The First Step

Source

We all have big plans for the future, don't we? It can be learning a new skill, have a great career, lose weight, get more healthy, write a book, travel the world. Anything, big or small. But sometimes, time passes and nothing happens. What if we just needed to simplify our approach and start with a first step?