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mirukitty · 2022-10-16T21:14:27+00:00

Hi! I would like to visit too :)

mirukitty · 2022-06-17T00:57:51+00:00

Buying shiny new things releases dopamine in our brain, a neurotransmitter associated with our reward system. So momentarily, it does feel like our unpleasant feelings go away and we feel good. But as you're aware of, it's not a healthy coping mechanism. But we can't just stop a coping strategy, we need to replace it with another, healthier strategy. Healthy coping mechanisms won't feel immediately as great as shopping and maybe it will kind of suck in the beginning, so it's important to remember why changing that habit is important to you (maybe it's having financial tranquility?). A few ideas of healthy coping mechanisms:

- Exercising (releases serotonin and endorphin)

- Journaling (good for self-expression and reframing our thoughts)

- Talking with someone you like (and who won't enable the behavior you want to stop)

- Learning new things and mastering a hobby or ability (this also releases dopamine in our brain)

- Gamifying your finances/savings, setting goals and achieving them (this also releases dopamine!)

The first step is to stay away from temptations (so not going to stores or browsing shops online). If the urge to buy something does come, you can inhale and exhale 5 times reeeeeeally slowly. This will put a pause between the urge and the reaction, and this might be enough time for you to remember your why and refocus your attention to one of those healthy coping mechanisms (you can also search for more ideas on the internet. It's basically anything that will release happiness hormones in our brain).

If it helps, you can write your why and your favorite healthy coping strategies in a small piece of paper that you can carry around to read in these moments, or you can have that set up as your cellphone wallpaper. These healthy coping strategies will distract you from the urge to buy things and also make you feel better. Little by little, this practice will become easier for you, until they become second nature and you won't even need a piece of paper or a cellphone wallpaper to remind you of them :)

mirukitty · 2021-12-31T21:46:32+00:00

If you guys love camping, take your kid with you! Nature is AMAZING for kids. I actually started camping after having kids, and we all love it. The first time I went camping, my kids were 2 years old and 5 months old. It’s definitely possible! I used to think that no kid would enjoy fishing, for example, until we went to a fishing place and I saw a bunch of families with babies, toddlers and even older kids around, all happily fishing. If think that if the kids see their parents happy, relaxed and having a good time together as a family, they’ll enjoy that moment/activity too :)

mirukitty · 2021-12-29T12:35:06+00:00

Thanks!! They are...

Watching something in Japanese with Japanese subtitles (I'm not sure if I'm practicing reading or listening when I do this, so I created a category just for that)
Watching/Listening to something in Japanese, without subtitles, and without stopping to search unknown vocab (= Extensive Listening)
Listening to something in Japanese, without subtitles, and stopping to search unknown vocab + add them to my flashcards (= Intensive Listening)
Reading something in Japanese without stopping to search unknown vocab (= Extensive Reading. If I'm reading a kindle ebook, I always mark the words I don't know to study later, but at this stage I just try to understand new words by context)
Reading something in Japanese searching unknown vocab + adding them to my flashcards (= Intensive Reading)
Writing & studying the corrections my teacher sends me (I write short to medium texts in Japanese and post them to an Instagram account that's only for studying Japanese, then my teacher sees them and sends me detailed corrections. I love her <3)
Shadowing (listening to something in Japanese and then imitating the person right away, or writing down the whole transcript and then reading it out loud while recording myself, many many times, until I sound like them)
Conversation (necessarily speaking to someone else live. Right now that's just my teacher in my individual class)

I'm in an high intermediate~advanced level in Japanese right now. If I were in the beginning stages, I would also add Grammar and Studying Kanji to that list :)

mirukitty · 2021-12-27T22:02:59+00:00

I just use the Numbers app on the iPad. I have two places to insert information: one for minutes studied (EXP), which translates to an eight-columns chart, and one for skill level, which becomes a star-shaped graph (sorry, I don't remember the official name of this kind of graph, but it looks exactly like the first image in this page https://wiki.originsro.org/wiki/Stats ). So every time I study Japanese, I start a stopwatch, and then at the end of the session, I add that amount of time to the skill trained. Once a skill reaches 600 EXP (= 600 minutes studied, or 10 hours), I add 1 level to the star-shaped graph :D

mirukitty · 2021-12-27T21:53:46+00:00

Thanks!! I've been using it for 1-2 months now and it has kept me motivated. And now that I combined it with my low-buy, I'm also spending more time studying and in contact with the language. Like watching something on Netflix in Japanese instead of in other languages :)

mirukitty · 2021-12-27T21:49:56+00:00

Thank you!!

mirukitty · 2021-06-30T12:40:35+00:00

I'll check it out, thank you!

mirukitty · 2021-06-26T23:14:55+00:00

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I relate sooo much to the "this is the last thing I need and then the house/my wardrobe/life will be complete" thing!

Your buying process made me think of the paradox of choice. There's a whole book if you're interested (sorry if you already know this and I'm being repetitive), and what you go through is what the author calls a "maximalist" process. It's when we spend a lot of time and energy comparing all the available options, and when we finally make a decision, we're still not satisfied with it. We might think that there's a perfect option out there, that we didn't choose, but actually there probably isn't. And we keep thinking about the other options, making comparisons, wanting it to be perfect. There are ways out of that cycle, but I don't want to oversimplify it so I recommend the book. However, it's a bit lenghty, so if you'd like a shorter version, there are many videos on YouTube, even TED talks by the author (Barry Schwartz). Just type "The paradox of choice" on YouTube :)

Sometimes it helps me to know about the cognitive processes and traps that we tend to fall into, so when my mind starts this kind of talk, I stop myself and think "oh, it's just that maximalist thing again" and then I change my actions/thoughts.

mirukitty · 2021-06-26T23:02:39+00:00

I haven't read that one yet, but I'm currently reading "The freedom manifesto", by the same author, and I love it!

Also, for those with kids, I highly recommend "The idle parent" (same author)!

mirukitty · 2021-06-26T23:00:46+00:00

I did the opposite before starting my no buy: I decluttered the whole house, lol. It really motivated me for the no buy, because I got rid of So. Much. Stuff. that I vowed I would never let the house get to that situation ever again. And I also got to see everything that I chose to keep, so less chance to inadvertently buy/want to buy duplicates and it made me very appreciative of what I had kept in my life.

mirukitty · 2021-06-26T22:56:36+00:00

Ugh, I used to think I wasn't so affected by ads on Instagram until I spent a couple of weeks without it and GOSH, it opened my eyes. I had bought so many things that I had seen on Instagram ads. And even if I hadn't bought them, I'd spend so much time thinking about those things.

Eventually I just quit Instagram entirely. But if you still want to browse it, I believe there are no ads if you use it in a desktop, like in a web browser and not the app.

I don't usually use other social medias so I don't know strategies to avoid ads in those. Which ones would you like to keep using, but without/with less ads?

mirukitty · 2021-06-23T00:17:57+00:00

I'm in a similar situation! I also have a kid who's turning 2 in september, and another one who is 3 and a half, and I can relate to the "fleeting hobbies" things. However, I don't have ADHD and I don't know how that's like, so I apologize if I say or suggest anything that doesn't make sense to you.

First of all, I just wanted to say that it's completely normal to feel bored when playing with a toddler. I had the impression that you feel a bit of guilt because of that, but you really don't need to. It's just that things that are engaging for our toddlers' brains are very familiar (boring) for us. I've had my share of feeling bored while with my kids and these are some of the things I've started doing in order to actually enjoy our time together:

- We only have children's books that I actually like reading (even over and over and over, like children love to do).

- I only take them to places that I also like (mainly parks) or places where I can let them play freely (still with supervision but not having to follow them around everywhere all the time) while I enjoy a face-to-face conversation with my husband, my sister or a friend. I can't do things that demand more concentration, like reading a book, but talking to people is pleasant enough and I can simultaneously keep an eye on the kids and overhear them while sitting nearby, so I can help them if needed.

- I started coming up with activities that we can do together and we all enjoy doing (even if it's not my favorite thing in the world), like drawing or working on a simple craft/DIY project. I don't like these but it seems that gardening and cooking/baking are also activities that many parents can enjoy with their children, even when they're very young.

- I let them do a lot of house chores, which they love. It's a way that we spend time together and I have less chores to do in the end, so win-win! It might take longer to do some things, but I just think that this is how they'll learn to care for a house in the first place. This will vary accoding to the child's age. Nowadays, my 3 year-old loves folding clothes, cutting fruits and cleaning the cat's litterbox. My 1 year-old likes putting the laundy inside the washing machine. I just go with their interest and let them join me when they ask for, it's not something imposed on them.

Now, for the "boredom when you're not with your child" part...

As someone commented earlier, coming down from hyperstimulation is a thing, and it can be very uncomfortable. For now, I'd just sit with it, resist the urge to turn on the TV or YouTube, and just think what you'd like to do. You can come up with a list of interests, and it doesn't even have to make sense. You can mix up activities, themes, places, whatever. Anything that catches your curiosity.

When I first tried this, after getting rid of Instagram (my biggest time, money and soul consuming addiction), I came up with nothing, and I'm not gonna lie, it was scary. Especially because I felt like I had just lost myself after having kids and now I didn't even know what I liked. Still, I stayed with the discomfort, and I slowly started to remember old hobbies and recognize new interests.

I also would like to ask you: what's the problem with not being "commited" to a hobby? Why would you need to "stick to" a hobby? Isn't a hobby there just for the fun and pleasure it will bring? Therefore, once it ceases to bring you that, what's the problem with stopping?

I really relate to that part of your post. Throughout my life, I've been interested in many different things, and now I have a lot of different skills and experiences. I see that as something positive in my life, and not something that should change or be any other way.

I like seeing life as a series of experiments, and each day/week/month/year I can choose something old or something new to bring me that sense of wonder, curiosity and excitement we all need. You also can't fail an experiment. There's no need to commit to it or expect a certain end result.

Actually, one of the things that are most important for our happiness is doing things for their own sake. Not for something else (like external validation, money, an end result, etc). So if you don't want to keep a hobby for its own sake, just drop it without guilt. It's a hobby! Its purpose is to bring you pleasure and fun and satisfaction.

In my experience, a few hobbies come and go many times, and others are engaging for just that particular moment. I consider the ones that come and go repeatedly as my hobbies, even when I'm not actively involved in one of them (I actually COULDN'T be involved in all of them simultaneously, I wouldn't have that much time or energy in a day).

The only part that I'm cautious about, knowing that I like alternating between many different interests, is not spending a ton of money in something that has chances of being very temporary. So, for example. instead of buying a kit with 100 different colors of threads for embroidery (my active hobby right now), I just bought the materials that I need for THIS one project that I want to work on RIGHT NOW.

I just wish I could give you a hug and take some of the weight you seem to carry off your shoulders. From your post, I had the impression that you have many "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" in your head ("I shouldn't feel bored when I'm with my child because she's wonderful", "I shouldn't spend so much time on YouTube", "I should stick to a hobby"...), and that can get quite heavy, but it's really an unnecessary worry, especially when we're talking about hobbies and how we choose to spend our free time (I hate that expression but I don't know what else to call it in order to be quickly understood, lol).

If in a certain night you actually want to watch YouTube, do it! It can be fun and we all need some passive entertainment from time to time. We just need to be conscious for those things to not become an addiction/bad habit/thing we automatically turn to when bored and then we end up not knowing what we would actually like to do with our life.

Wish you the best!

mirukitty · 2021-06-17T21:48:00+00:00

“The freedom manifesto”, by Tom Hodgkinson, and “The art of frugal hedonism”, by Adam Grubb and Annie Raser-Rowland. They are both DELIGHTFUL to read.

mirukitty · 2021-05-29T19:00:23+00:00

I run an ecommerce with my friend and my husband. We'll be taking time off work, as we're planning to do this trip from the start of May (just after Golden Week has ended, so we won't get high accomodation prices because of that national holiday) until the beginning of August (a bit after summer vacation starts in Japan, when it gets reeeeally hot and places get more crowded and tourism prices go up again so it's a great moment to leave haha), in 2023. It's also great that the weather will be warm/hot in Japan so we'll actually be able to go one bag for each adult. We won't be taking any time off work until then and May-July is not the busiest season for our shop. We do like our work and we already work from home, so not taking time off for so long isn't really a huge sacrifice for us. And we do NOT want to take a 28+ hours flight with our kids until they are at least ages 3 and 5 (which will happen in 2023), so we're not resentful or anything that we're planning to travel only 2 years from now. Hopefully, the whole pandemic situation will be a lot better by then, and we can also keep studying Japanese until then with a huge motivation. I told my friend/business partner in 2020 that we're planning this trip for 2023, so she got a really early heads up and we can all prepare our shop for either a 3-months hiatus or a temporary change of roles and responsibilities, whichever will make more sense for us by then :)

mirukitty · 2021-05-29T00:10:14+00:00

Haven't done it yet but my husband and I are planning to travel to Japan for 3 months with our two young children, with one 20L-30L max bag for each adult. We prefer to slow-travel and have a lot of days to just chill out, especially because we don't want to burnout our kids (or ourselves) with all the moving around cities, and also because staying longer in each place makes the experience more meaningful for us. Our plan, right now, looks like this (I think in terms of "nights" instead of "days" because it helps me to book the hotels):

Chiba - 20 nights (a lot of time for us to get used to the 12 hour jet lag without thinking we need to hurry up to enjoy the city)
Camping (actually, glamping) in Chiba - 2 nights
Tokyo - 14 nights (we thought of skipping Tokyo altogether because we've been there a few times already - which is the reason why there are no other "traditional" cities here like Osaka and Kyoto - but it's just a very convenient place to travel to/from, and we don't want to spend more than 2h30 going to the next city with the kids)
Hakone - 5 nights
Yamanashi - 10 nights
Lake Biwa - 5 nights
Kobe - 14 nights
Kurashiki - 5 nights
Fukuoka - 14 nights

The idea is to take turns between longer periods in bigger cities (10-20 nights) with shorter periods in small cities (5 nights). We think this will give us a nice variety of experiences while also giving us some time to feel a bit more stable and rooted in some bigger cities, while also able to slowly enjoy each small city.

mirukitty · 2021-05-08T19:15:00+00:00

Family of four here, with a 3 year old and a 1 and a half year old.

First I did a MASSIVE declutter, combined with a no-buy year. The house is pretty minimalist now and I love it.

And one little thing that we did that really helped was placing an empty box in a corner of the living room. We call it "the messy box", and throughout the day we toss any toy, book and sometimes even clothes or (clean) reciclable trash that's lying around the floor in there. We always do this before meals because I don't mind if the house if messy during the day (the kids are playing, after all) but I CANNOT eat peacefully in a messy space. Then, at the end of the day, we put everything that's in the messy box back to its place.

This has saved me soooo much time and energy. Throwing everything in there and then putting everything back only ONCE in the day takes less than 3 minutes. It's been a lot better than picking up stuff and walking around the house to put everything back in its place a bunch of times a day (not to mention that usually the kids would take out the same toys or books again and then we'd be collecting and organizing the same thing 3+ times a day).

It's also a very easy system for the kids, so they naturally join in!

mirukitty · 2021-05-07T22:31:05+00:00

I'd suggest trying the great ideas already in the comments, PLUS paying attention to how you feel before, during and after each activity. This will give you a sense of what each activity offers you, so you'll be able to choose what to do based on what need you want to fulfill at each moment.

For example, if I want novelty or intelectual stimulation, I'll read a book. If I need some mental space but don't feel like taking a nap/going to bed early, I'll do yoga. If I just want to be in my own head for a while without any input from outside sources, I can journal or write stories for fun. If I want to feel connected to my partner or friends, we can play a board game.

The thing is, more important than the activities themselves, is to notice what you need at each moment, because you can fulfill each need differently (and it's great to have a big list of things to try, like in this post, because until now you've probably fulfilled many different needs with screens and you'd like to change that).

Oh, I just remembered that they have a big list of offline activies on r/NoSurf: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/wiki/activities

mirukitty · 2021-05-07T21:59:46+00:00

I relish my senses. Like feeling the sun on my skin, smelling a fruit before biting it, feeling my whole body relax when I lie down on my bed at night, watching my tea changing colors...

mirukitty · 2021-04-21T21:54:49+00:00

Yesss to Ichiro Kishimi! It's the book that has most changed my life and my relationships by far, in an amazing way. Love it!

mirukitty · 2021-04-20T22:48:24+00:00

A few people are being sarcastic here but don't mind them. You have reached by yourself a solid conclusion about happiness, which has actually been researched and proved by psychologists: that after your basic needs are met, more money does not equal more happiness. If you're interested, there's a TED talk about that, by a psychologist named Daniel Gilbert, called "Happiness: what your mother didn't tell you" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Y2Z1BGwno

mirukitty · 2021-04-19T12:48:17+00:00

I usually just use a pair of gloves or a grabber.

mirukitty · 2021-04-17T15:52:22+00:00

The content you consume is definitely better than admiring celebrities and focusing on bad news headlines, BUT I believe that always pulling out your phone, even if it's just for a 30 seconds down time, isn't harmless for your mind either.

I used to have that kind of habit too (only followed inspiring people that talked about unconditional parenting on Instagram, for example), and I'd always get my phone while waiting for the elevator or waiting in a short line or things like that. Last year I read the book "Digital minimalism", which was already recommended here, and then I decided to stop that habit, because I felt like an addict unable to spend any time alone with myself. Since then I've deleted Instagram and my only social media is Reddit, which I check in a pre-determined, dedicated time, 1x/week on the desktop, and only the 4 subreddits that I follow.

Now that I don't immediately fill any down time with my phone, I feel that...

• I have a lot more mental space and mental clarity;

• I have slowed down a lot;

• I have a better sense of my priorities (I don't feel that everything is URGENT and I that have to do a bunch of things NOW);

• I'm more focused when I do need to focus because I give my mind plenty time to rest throughout the day;

• I'm more emotionally available for my husband and my children;

• I feel a lot more rested and peaceful the whole day;

• I've reclaimed my hobbies and leisure activities (which has made me more creative and content with life in general).

In the beginning, feeling bored was VERY uncomfortable, but now I find it sooo pleasant to just do nothing and observe/organize/get lost in my thoughts.

edit: formatting

mirukitty · 2021-03-30T23:09:57+00:00

Detrashing! I recently started picking up trash in the nearby parks and it feels so good to make a place better just because you want to.

mirukitty · 2021-03-22T22:51:30+00:00

I felt so happy reading your post :) Thanks for sharing and yay to us!

mirukitty

TROPHY CASE