“The life we design asks not only what can be built, but also what can be removed.”
This is a lesson from a lived experience, not a universal prescription.
In this very moment, as these words find the page, I am seated at the kitchen counter of my newly lived-in home.
The bustle of the neighbourhood is not yet within audible reach. All else is silent but the taps of my fingers as they meet the keyboard.
As I take inventory of the room, I can’t help but sigh.
Nothing is out of place.
The bookshelf that faces the couch and leg rest.
The rocking chair angled towards the greenery of spider and snake plants, alongside framed memories.
The light-green walls inherited from the family before.
Nothing
is out of place.
Some serendipitous, while others are shaped by intention.
An intention that only became clear after meeting myself in full.
As for this present experience, it is but one of many.
There are some lives that feel familiar, even in nuance, while others carry distance in light-years.
Even so, it all feels relative.
From the billionaire with front-row seats to an island sunset to the single mother rushing to her next appointment, we are all living relative to our realities, where comparison cannot exist up close.
And even with this knowing, we may find ourselves inviting it in times of exhaustion, when the days are hard and our vulnerabilities are exposed. We start comparing life circumstances, conditions, and possessions, which can supply the momentary hit of recognition we seek, but not the difference we need.
For difference asks that we start with what is possible and within reach. To turn our focus inward, to our lives as they are, where we can become both carvers and curators. Whether we find ourselves starting from a place of grief, dissatisfaction, or a desire to step into a new existence.
And when we take up the reins, we can often experience a push and pull, from anticipation and excitement about the future to anxious fears of the unknown. Even so, when we accept our lives as ours, we are also asked to accept their conditions.
That with the freedom of our life’s choices, we also carry a responsibility we cannot escape or offload.
That we are our own primary caretaker, on sick days and without paid time off.
That we will be faced with outcomes that may not always be in our control, but for the ones that are, therein lies our truest ownership and power.
Our most natural inclination can be to lean towards expansion:
What can I build?
What more can I do?
What more can I become?
Responses to these questions have often led me into the aimless hoarding of knowledge in times when I was holding myself back, or the addition of new routines that proved unsustainable.
Such expansion is best served when the waters that fill our glasses aren’t on the verge of a spill. And quite often, it is not just about the capacity of our glasses, but the quality of their contents.
Because adding to a life that still keeps us questioning or feels fractured cannot, even with good intentions, sustain more. For “more,” when we are already on a lifeline, can produce reverse effects, where suffocation, energy drain, and time theft become more deeply felt than the pursuit.
So often, it’s not about what can be built, but what needs to be reassessed. To take inventory of what is already present and ask ourselves:
What has been taking more than it gives?
What is the truth of my reality?
What is in my present power to change?
Whether the answers reveal themselves
in relationships that are no longer aligned,
in effort and time given to areas that start to feel stolen,
or in roles and commitments that now bear the weight of burdens,
these are the findings worth calling into question.
When we take inventory, we give ourselves the gift of honest clarity, without illusion. From there, we can begin to reshape what’s possible, bridge the gap where we are willing, and remove what’s necessary. In doing so, we give ourselves the chance to win back the breath we lost, so that we can breathe back into our lives.
When I took on this inventory myself, it led to a life change that my suffering was pleading for, but my mind and body had chosen to endure.
I finally released myself from a relationship that could no longer be saved, friendships that revealed their painful truths, and commitments that kept me away from my curiosities.
From this release, my chest expanded in ways I never thought possible, time lengthened and eased the pressures that so often came with it, and rest felt more natural, with a peace that has now become my most protected possession.
Did my circle become smaller? Yes.
Even in the process of removal, clarity, rest, time, and energy took their place.
It led to clearer, more intentional decisions, which have now found me in a home with serendipitously light-green walls and new friendships where I can laugh with reckless abandon.
Oftentimes, bravery comes not from the building but from the removal because it asks us to pause and sit with what’s not working.
It might be tempting, in these moments, to be hard on ourselves, to shame or deem ourselves failures. But if we are willing to take accountability with compassion, we are more capable of accepting the truth without self-punishment.
We can start to acknowledge where we have been the thieves of our own time and energy. Where others may have hurt us without assigning blame. Where our lives carry limitations without collapsing into helplessness. And where we still have the power to shape ourselves within the lives we have.
From that cleared space and the decisions that follow, building becomes possible, where the questions start to look different.
Not “what can I build,” but rather:
What expands me?
What returns more energy than it takes?
What, when I give my time to it, makes time itself feel generous?
What makes me more myself, not less?
When we are able to start from a place of spaciousness, building from breath can come with ease.
