This is Optimal Living Daily, Episode 1796. You are the Curator of Your Life by M.S.I.B of SimpleSlowLovely.com and I'm Justin Malick, a personal narrator, reading to you with permission from the authors. I cover lots of topics like personal development or self-help, mindfulness, happiness, anything that I think can help you live a more meaningful life in just a few minutes every day. And with that, let's get right to it as we optimize your life.
You are the Curator of Your Life by M.S.I.B of SimpleSlowLovely.com. Last week, I talked about creating. About how I believe that creating is an essential part of all of our lives. It's the opposite of consumption and we need both to feel balanced.
Today, I want to tackle another important and related idea, the idea of curating your life. Did you know that you and only you have the ability to decide what you want in your life and what you want out? You have the ability to decide on the bits you like about your life and then nurture them so they grow in bloom. And also, you can hunt for the bits you don't like about your life and kick them to the curb.
Imagine for a moment that your life is like a museum. Let's take a sneaky peek through the doors. What do you see in there? Is it dusty and untended to?
Is it cluttered and full of things you can't even name? Maybe you can barely even get in the door due to all the items that are thrown haphazardly in any space available. My life has been like this at times, a dark, dank, dusty, and uncared-for museum. At times, I've been the worst curator of my life, showing complete disregard for the things I placed, both intentionally and unintentionally, in my life.
However, I'm slowly working on my curatorship skills. I'm finally giving myself permission and time to tend lovingly to the items in my museum. It's far from perfect and will never be finished, but that's okay. Museums are always growing, always changing, and will always need dusting.
My museum. Today, most days, my museum is bright and airy, and there's a distinct sense of hope in the air. This season's well-cared-for exhibition is everything creative with my writing at the forefront. As curator, I take special care of this display, ensuring that I check in every day to clean and tend to my writing.
Alongside my creative exhibit sits my exhibit on connection. This exhibit showcases my relationships with the people I love. Sometimes curatorship here comes naturally. Other times have to be particularly mindful to care lovingly to this exhibition.
Some relationships can easily get dusty and forgotten. Marriages and long-term partnerships are prime examples. After 17 years and two children, whose needs often take precedence, the dust can accumulate. But as curator, I'm trying to purposefully and mindfully take better care of this exhibit.
Further back in the darker corner of my museum, you'll find some exhibits that aren't so well-cared-for. There's one unhealthy eating that's pretty cluttered and, well, to be honest, full of... I'm eating far too mindlessly at the moment, and there's way too much sugar at this exhibit. There's a sprinkling of good here, too, though, like my love of veggies.
But overall, this exhibit is cluttered and not well-curated, and needs an overhaul. What else? My parenting skills exhibit has grown a lot over the past eight and a half years, and boy has been the most challenging one. It started tiny with only a few items, but the exhibit has grown over time, partly through mindful decisions to change behaviors and atmosphere, partly through loving input from special people who have previous award-winning exhibits.
Every exhibit has seasons where it is subject to more attention, more tender loving care. I've just entered a season like this with my parenting exhibit. After finishing a full-time career job, I am building my reserves to get back to daily intentional, tender loving care over at this exhibit. Kick them to the curb.
There are also some exhibits that badly need to be discontinued, not just put in storage for the season, but chucked out, kicked to the curb. A prime example here is my worthiness, or should that be worthlessness? This exhibit is old. It says old as me, has its roots in my conception and birth story, a story for another day, and these roots are unfortunately pretty strong.
This exhibit has had its time in the limelight over the years, seasons where I've deliberately chosen to listen to the narrator at the exhibit, and to believe the statements she tells me about my worthlessness are true. After 38 years, I'm well and truly sick of her. Her voice has a nagging, whining quality to it, and I often feel physically ill after listening. Thankfully, these days, I don't stop by to listen or dust much at all.
Rather, I'm working away behind the scenes to finally show this exhibit and the narrator where to go. On Voyage, I don't have the time or the inclination to listen to you anymore. So, there it is, a peek into my museum. It's a work in progress, ever changing, and always improving these days.
Dark and dusty corners are being brought into the light. I put on my curatorship at most days and do the work to ensure things are well cared for. Maybe your museum has some exhibits that need tossing out the door, ones that have kept you from achieving and focusing on your dreams, and there's probably some that need some tender loving care, some whose time it is to shine. What have you been dreaming of doing or putting into your life that you can action today?
You and only you have the power to do this. You are the curator of your life. You just listened to the post titled, You Are the Curator of Your Life by M.S.I. above SimpleSlowLovely.com.
I'm constantly thinking about how to optimize my health, what supplements to take, hours of sleep, what my diet should focus on. Superpower finally takes the guessing out of it. One simple lab test covers over 100 biomarkers in their app, gives you a complete picture of your heart, liver, hormones, metabolism, even environmental toxins. Plus, it used to cost $499 right now.
It's just $199. And head to superpower.com and use code old at checkout for an additional $20 off your membership. Curation is what we do right here on this podcast, hand picking specific articles curated for you so you don't have to worry about finding these yourself. So I like to think it's added value.
But like Emma mentioned, curation of your own life is really important to check in, do a little inventory, and see what's excessive, unnecessary, unhelpful, or what's missing too and can be added in. I like that museum analogy, what's clearing up the space or maybe the opposite, what's making it feel empty. Actually, visualizing this can be a great practice to see your life and everything in it from a different angle. So try this out today, even if it's just for a minute and see what you come up with.
Curate away, and in the meantime, I'll be curating articles for you here again tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.