Subtraction

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There’s something about the way a jagged piece of wood, totally wild looking, is placed on the brackets and it’s spun at such incredible speed that it looks like a solid shape as the woodworker starts to carve away, giving shape to something that looks ridiculously different from, you know, how it began.

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Watching these videos, it relaxes me and it also makes me think.

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Our society is shaped by some common mindsets that are difficult to even detect unless you step outside of your region of the world and into one that has fundamentally different ways of seeing life.

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We are almost programmed to see life as a thing that we need to build.

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So, you know, you were born and you have to acquire a certain amount of knowledge and skills so that you can then move on to college.

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Then in college, we need to acquire a certain amount of credits and experience so as to move on to the next level.

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Once we enter the workforce, we continue to build.

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The more experience, the more years you are at a certain job, the more money you add to your salary, the more benefits, the more, the more, the more.

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And this is the reason why people who go against that current are seen as odd.

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We look at the tiny house movement, for instance, as a curiosity and oddity.

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Same with minimalism, or someone who decides they don’t want to have children, or don’t want to get married.

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If addition isn’t happening, it appears as though we’re going against a current.

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It’s like we live in a culture of addition and multiplication.

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It’s a manufacturing culture.

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We have to put one piece along with another piece and another piece so that we can assemble a whole life.

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This is very typical of Western thought.

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However, that’s not how other cultures around the world envision life or the world itself for that matter.

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What if we tried seeing life not as something to assemble, but rather something to subtract from, to get a desired outcome?

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And I mean this in the sense that a carved sculpture is not something that is assembled, for instance.

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But rather, the sculptor takes away from a block of something to arrive at a finished piece.

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One could almost say that the sculpture was hiding inside the block of marble all along.

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It just needed to be discovered.

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In the same way, the solution to shaping your life or addressing a challenge that’s in front of you might not be to add something, but rather discovering a solution or a path forward through subtraction.

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The two approaches to problem solving are drastically different.

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One can easily overwhelm you by making you feel paralyzed due to not knowing what to do next.

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When you’re supposed to add an element to a situation to solve it, you may not know what it is you’re supposed to add.

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But what if you subtract?

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What if you discard from what’s already in front of you?

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Subtraction might seem like a step backwards at times.

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It’s just easier to add chocolates and flowers at that issue with your partner instead of sitting down to chip away at the problem together until you discover the underlying causes or triggers.

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It’s easier to add a family vacation to distract from the strife instead of having heart-to-hearts and carving out the conflict that’s poisoning your family life.

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The subtraction approach forces you to take ownership of what’s in front of you.

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The woodworker doesn’t ignore the jagged piece of wood in front of her.

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She sees it as what she’s got to work with, and knows that inside the jaggedness and chaos, there’s something beautiful and something worth carving towards.

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Now, of course, if we’re considering the idea of subtraction, then the question that comes to mind is, what to subtract?

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Destructive Attitudes, Bad Habits, Resentment and Hatred, Possessions that don’t bring value to your life, Money Wasting, Toxic Relationships, Guilt, Shame?

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The factor that ends up being subtracted might be different for most of us.

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However, the important first step is embracing this approach as a solution at all.

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What will your life look like with less instead of more?

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Less to account for, less to protect, less to clean, less to entertain, less to fix, less to feel heartache over.

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Try this when you can.

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Don’t think of addition as the only way to obtain a result in one.

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Look at nature.

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All sorts of animals shed parts of themselves in order to survive and thrive.

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Plant life is constantly shedding parts of itself to bloom and to give fruit.

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And yet, here we are, adding more and more and more, weighing ourselves down, slowing ourselves down.

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Pay attention to what life is trying to tell you.

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Consider subtraction an option in your life.

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It might just be the beginning of a renewal for you.

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Let me know how it goes.

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You can write me at contactamusing.gmail.com.

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Catch you in the next episode for our season one finale.

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Goodbye, friends.