The Intentional Life

Are you a minimalist or a maximalist?

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

Do you lead an intentional life?

This question has been asked many times in self-help books and all kinds of literature and posts online. Yet, I do believe we must eventually face this topic. Never posing the question would mean you stumble about your days on earth unintentionally, right?

And simply thinking about it is the key here. Hard questions might be too hard, sometimes. Knowing that the quandary exists means that you have done more than the average fellow and are on some road that just might end in contentment.

What we see every day is unintentionality. This is how our minds interpret the busy-bee behaviors and repetitive tasks that monopolize others. Are we right? Not all the time.

What means nothing to me may be a project of focus and intentionality to another. For instance, one person is out cruising around with no destination and no gameplan, it appears. Maybe a man has left the house to give his wife some alone time, because her obligations have tripled and she is burning every candle at both ends. Or, perhaps there has been an argument where the next, best move is just to clear the air.

Then there is part of me that thinks I was right the first time, and most people are miming life instead of struggling to live it the best they can. Life moves so fast that we forget who we are and our desires in this one lifetime that will someday be over.

Most folks are links in a chain but not the chain itself. What we are doing at any given time is the result of falling dominoes of demands that we did not originate and never would if given the choice.

She is frantically dusting the furniture and end-tables because of a surprise visit by her husband’s boss. On the following Monday, the boss will be called into his boss’ (the big boss) office to discuss a very important project. Unfortunately, the husband and his employer never worked out the details of the project making this emergency meeting necessary. The wife not only has to clean up but also go out and buy some cookies, or something, for this soon-to-happen and unwanted get-together. The truth? She really does not care if the end-table is dusty or not and never even thought about performing this work.

I do not know if this is a southern phrase or if it is universal, but this is called: “being put-upon.” It almost always sucks.

Being intentional is not selfish. It means you have plans, large and small, for what you want to do with your life, and you have negotiated the means to put those plans into motion. Likewise, intentionality does not require that you only do what you want 100% of the time. That does not exist.

Knowing what you want and who you are helps quite a bit. The future comes into focus more instead of being just a hazy series of responsibilities that one fears. The unintentional person cannot imagine the future at all in a manner that allows comfort.

This last sentence is especially crucial to your author. I have a tendency to stay mired in the past and look backwards for answers to most things. I must be intentional.

Thinking about this topic led me to another place and yet another complicated question. To live intentionally, is it better to be a minimalist or a maximalist? I confess I understand minimalism much better.

Always, my instinct is that I am a minimalist. Looking back on my days on earth, this is an easy reply.

For example, as an undergraduate I went away to college but it was not far from my childhood home. Most weekends I returned to my hometown and to my family.

Sundays were leaving days headed back to my college apartment. Mom always tried to overburden me with everything under the sun that I might need. “I know you have a flashlight, but you might need another,” she might have said. I am grateful now and even then.

Though, I did not like an overabundance of “things” of any kind—useful or not. In those days, there was no medication for my anxiety disorder. The accumulation of material things felt like the world weighing on me, and as I sorted through them all I worried where this and that would be stored. I had to do everything perfectly, you see.

There was even an order that I packed objects in my truck for the journey back to school. When something fell out of order, or a thing could not be located, I panicked and had the occasional breakdown.

So as the minimalist would surely say: less is more.

Apparently, maximalists believe that more is more. Yet there must be more to this philosophy than this. I am thinking that something more than buying a storage space for one’s overflowing possessions separates minimalism and maximalism.

Some folks like brightness, busyness, collections, and using all available space to display preferences. I think of clothing first. Next, my mind turns toward shoes, and I don’t think I need much explanation here.

We all have seen both a minimalist and a maximalist designed home. I am talking more here about the decorations on the inside. Taken to the extremes, both points of view are ugly. There is an uneven flow from one thing to the next. Nothing makes sense.

As to the main subject of the story, I again must go with minimalism. As we all know, it is easy to become that link in the chain where lots of stuff gets deposited. One’s life is like a dumping ground for everything.

Hoarding comes to mind. In my point of view, a hoarder can never truthfully state that he is living intentionally. By the rule, he is merely bathing in the trappings of the past and not moving forward with purpose. A hoarder has no boundaries and thus no direction, right? This seems so.

But let’s forget extremism and consider more of the ordinary. A minimalist has taken control of his or her future. This person is self-aware and determined what does not fit their preferred lifestyle. One has to learn how to say no to things, for sure.

Without having to be told, I have long been cognizant of how physical clutter leads to mental turmoil. The relationship is direct and easy to comprehend.

Therefore, I am quick to throw things out that are of marginal use to me. But honestly, I act too quickly sometimes. Have you ever been in a situation where you needed something that had already been trashed?

So, I want to answer both questions now, with hesitation: I live with intention and am a minimalist. Just to add, I think minimalism is the best concept to pursue to find a purposeful existence.

Also, I concede that I might be wrong.

For certain, my mind is not of the minimalist persuasion. It is a Ferris wheel of big ideas and anxieties, mostly, and a few small details that make appearances now and then. Everything moves fast. I am an associative thinker who questions whatever you tell me and pontificates on all matters of supreme importance. I love to constantly compare, combine, delete, add, mix-up, and start all over after the wheel makes one revolution and begins again.

And can we think of how minimalism does not align with intentionality? Of course we can.

For me, minimalism might be interpreted as a survival technique. Instead of allowing myself to be saturated by stuff, I begin frantically to cross items off my invisible mind-list. Simplicity aids in better mental health—at least it does for me and others whom I have known. In this way, I am not choosing as much as battling in a desperate war to keep my head above water.

One might intentionally love showcasing who they are through the exhibition of their favorite things. A person might want a checkered floor and pinstriped wallpaper as an example of their eccentricity. This is an intentional point of view. “Hey, come check-out my collection of flags from around the world,” someone might utter.

Bright surroundings might stimulate one’s creativity. It might make a person simply feel more joy. Many books on many bookcases are commonly a sign of a wise, forward-thinking, self-sustaining individual.

As for me, my formula at the present will remain intentionality + minimalism=purpose.

Saying something of great meaning with few words is still one of my favorite features of living in this world. I love to find these nuggets.

Think about Clint Eastwood-directed movies. The music is light and meanders in and out. Characters hint at their motivations but rarely ever give the audience a five-minute exposition.

We are left to infer things. Great lyrics, to me, are still of the kind that leave plenty of room for interpretation. A clear indicator of a bad songwriter is telling us what he wants us to know as if a grocery list. Indeed, in music less is more.

Since I first heard the song, The Beatles’ “Let it Be” has been a preferred mini-philosophy that I occasionally espouse. Think about it. There is much represented here in three quite mundane words.

Any final answer on this subject must go something like this: learn to maximize what you want, minimize what you do not, and get out of bed every morning with both those minor and major intentions.

On most days, we are not going to save the world or write a poem that will move millions. But these are my takes, and if you are intentional, you will have some of your own.

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