The truth in compassion

“There is a beautiful kind of cause-and-effect relationship between truth and compassion. They go together. Compassion leads to truth, truth to compassion; and what makes us avoid either or both of them is usually pain. We want to feel good. We want to protect our beliefs, our ideas about who we are. We want to protect ourselves from seeing the truth about others. … We think the lies are the truth, because we don’t trust the truth itself. But the truth itself is the point, regardless of whether it accords with our beliefs.”

A.H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book I

Nothing New: Final reflections on my attempts at buying nothing new for almost a year

As the autumn is slowly coming to its end and the winter air sneaks into our house through nooks, crannies and keyholes, I am bringing out our old coats, hats, scarves and jumpers and I am bracing us for the winter. In fact I am surprised how long we’ve managed to survive just with our summer jackets, running around with bare necks and heads uncovered. It’s been by all means one of the warmest Novembers I’ve experienced in the UK.

The year is almost over and I’ve been thinking about the journey that I have taken through embracing the Nothing New Project and how much I’ve gained because of it. (Almost) all the goods that I’ve bought this year were not new, but the direction my thoughts have taken me in were new to me. To be truthful, I’ve started liking myself a bit more towards the end of this year as I felt I’ve been a part of something meaningful… maybe even a small part of a big social change. I hope I was. I hope I still am.

If I had to list one thing that I’ve learnt or re-learnt through this project, I would fail at the task, as it’s just impossible to encapsulate the outcome of this project in one line. It would never do it justice. I can hear some of you saying: ‘But come on Alicja, give us three things, three things that you’ve learnt from the Nothing New Project. How would you encourage others to go about it?’ My answer would be: Try to do these things:

1. Engage
2. Maintain
3. Connect

Engage with what you have. More often than not we crave for new things because we forget about the things that we already have. We walk through our rooms oblivious to their contents. There are books that are unread, films not yet watched, CDs hardly ever listened to. Give those items your attention. You have probably bought them with a strong purpose of engaging with them. Give yourself time to do it. The Nothing New Project made it very clear to me that buying is not becoming – that the act of buying something does not change us; it does not make us something else other than just a consumer. To change we need to engage with what we’ve invested in. Only our efforts lead to creations which bring about change. Having a house will never equal having a home if we don’t breathe life into it.

Maintain. This is something that I have had the biggest problem with for as long as my mind can recall. I rush from one job to another, from one project to another, from one occasion to another and my mind is so scattered that I’ve hardly ever given time to the maintenance tasks. Maintenance means to “keep things in being”. To do this we should repair, preserve, clean and conserve what we already have. One thing is to possess something, it’s quite another to give it a long and good life.

Connect with people. Search for or create communities where you can share, swap, circulate items. Enrich others. Sign up to Freecycle or other groups to keep things out of landfill. Use libraries, toy libraries, tool hires. We really don’t need to possess everything. Realistically, we do not have space for everything. In her beautiful post Surrender Sash Milne, the initiator of the Nothing New Project, wrote “Make every transaction an opportunity for human connection. With connection comes relationships, with relationships comes community.” This to me is the core message of the Nothing New Project. Often we hide in our homes with things that we have, with things that could be shared or offered to others (not only goods but also time and talents). When we show to others what we have, who we are, we realise that we have a lot and collectively we have everything. It’s so easy to feel unloved, it’s so easy to feel lonely when all we do is anonymous shopping, and then hiding and hording.

The Nothing New Project made me reach out and learn. I’ve started two groups in my communities and joined another. One of the two groups is doing really well, the other one… will be too (one day). You don’t always need to start a group, just attend the events that are going on in your area already. You are showing your support and openness for friendship through that. Be ambitious for your communities. Just because it must start from someone. Could it be you?

I’ve been following Sash Milne at Inked in Colour and her Nothing New Project for months now. I’ve embraced her ideas because they are simply great. Pop over to her blog for wonderful insights, great photography and writing.

Sunny life

Just a few memories collected in one spot. The last-but-one photo was taken in Aosta, Italy. The feast of sweet dishes was made by my aunitie in Poland. The large pumpkin was given to me by my neighbour a week ago – my little boy was trying to make a soup out of it for his crocodile. :)

Nothing New and Happiness

The Nothing New project made me think a lot about the relationship between happiness and possessions. There was a moment in that project when I thought to myself: should I start hating all material possessions now, despise the material world, should I reject my belongings altogether? Then I examined it deeper and I decided that if I did that, it would be irrational and totally against what I felt too. Because I haven’t been buying anything new, I have regularly engaged with what I own and this regular encounter with my belongings brought about my strong appreciation of what we have. The other day I was sorting through my son’s toys and books and I noticed that we actually play with everything that he’s got and we’ve been reading most of the books. His and my clothes are also well-worn now. A large number of clothes that my son has are hand-me-downs from my sister’s friend. We received a big bag of those in exchange for my photographic skills. Every time when I dress my son in one of those items I think of that lovely family and the kids that I’ve photographed. I feel very connected to them.

Similar feelings appear when I use or look at other things, little tokens of familial love and friendship: 12 colouring pencils that lie on my desk remind me of a very kind Italian girl that I’ve just recently befriended and who gave me those pencils after I explored with her different ways of becoming more organised; a Happy Easter 2014 cup with dotted eggs carefully painted on it make me think every day of my husband’s lovely little nephew and a necklace that I’ve been wearing almost every day draws my thoughts to my godfather who just by being himself has for years been an amazing source of strength and inspiration for me. These and other well-used items represent and remind me of people who are part of my life, even though I do not see them often. The difference between these objects and those that are still waiting for us in shops is that they have been filled with people’s faces and emotions. They have come with a cordial soul that those items at shops simply do not possess yet.

The Nothing New Project was initiated by Inked in Colour. Pop over to the blog. There is plenty to see there and I am sure that you will be inspired too.