Stop rushing, sit and watch. Embrace the liveliness of things around you that you’ve been ignoring for a long time.
Turn around and start moving backward to observe, embrace and reuse the past methods. Reintroduce the things in your life, you used to use. Go back to old, classic and comfortable methods.
Things have been a lot more complex and uncomfortable, but people had to use them for the sake of being trendy & modern. Adapt to those changes only that makes your life simple, not complex.
I visited Kolkata and the thing I loved about the city is that it has stuck in that vintage era and refuses to move forward with the time. It doesn’t imply that the city is lacking sufficient resources for the growth, Infact India’s first metro was launched in Kolkata in 1984, and in 2002.
So, it’s not a matter of resources. Kolkata has preserved some old methods that were comfortable and continue to use them till now.
We should not change ourselves to every change just because everyone’s doing so. Sometimes you should keep old things and methods in use.
First editions of old books are precious than latest and modified ones.
Here are a few things you can observe around you and can change them according to your ease.
From uncomfortable, complex, trendy outfits to Simple, comfortable and fashionable outfits.
Now a days, trends are more hyped than actual fashion. People’s views on fashion have changed. It has become more uncomfortable, volatile and people think that trend is fashion, which is not true.
From wireless earbuds to wired earphones.
Yes, wireless buds have solved the problem of dealing the wire entanglement but also have limited the use. I do not want to worry about charging my earphones to listen songs anytime and anywhere. Hence, I prefer wired ones.
From annoying complex smartphones to dumb feature phones.
Can you notice that our phone almost does everything but in fact we don’t need to do everything every time. We do not need to check our emails every time, we do not need to chat every time and neither watching photos or videos every time. Phone should be used for certain essential things like calling, SMS, music and Internet for raincheck.
You can always schedule a specific time period to check your emails, chats, scroll social profile or watch movie etc. If someone has urgent needs, she/he can call you instead of passing a WhatsApp chat.
Keeping a dumb phone can save you a lot of time. I am thinking about investing in one as well.
Read: I minimized my notifications, and you should too.
From smartwatch to classic analog or digital timepieces.
Say it that you don’t worry a lot about your vitals every time and at least not when you are doing all well. Smartwatch vital monitors aren’t also quite inaccurate.
You don’t have to be this much obsessed with your fitness and shouldn’t always rely on numbers.
Most of the time you just want to know the time, then go wear a simple watch that shows time & date. That’s all.
Buying goods from local store or vendors instead of malls / outlets/ showrooms.
You give 1499 INR in malls but bargain for the same t-shirt at local store which is selling it at 700 INR.
From using digital notes to sticky post-it notes.
You will encounter post-it notes very often than the digitally saved reminder notes and that’s what a note supposed to do, keep reminding you the thing.
From using google maps to asking people for directions.
People are kind & helpful; you just need to ask for it.
From writing your blog draft on laptop to writing in your diary first.
With this, you will get to observe things around and while writing in the diary, you will get more ideas and time to make thought-threads which are essential for writing deep.
I did make the draft for this blog post in my diary and later on wrote all this on the laptop.
From clicking photos in fancy filters to capturing in classic B&W.
I love clicking pictures in black and white. I am making a page to showcase those images on my blog. Will share updates about this sooner.
From vlogs, online lectures, social media posts, reels, TikToks to newspapers, books, novels and study notes.
From Instagram captions to blog articles, profile wall to your room wall.
You can use those instant polaroid cameras to get instant photos and pin them on your wall and it will look more beautiful than your Instagram or Pinterest walls.
See, you can stay basic and there’s no need to change for volatile trends and neither of adapting to a complex, unhealthy and uncomfortable environment just for the sake of being called modern.
The old ways may take more time and effort, but they are often more meaningful and rewarding in the end.
See you next time with some more good ideas on how to get back to basics.
Ankit Upadhyay