"Once you've succeeded in dispensing with something you thought essential, you realize you can also do without something else, then without many other things." - Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a travelerA little over a year ago I began to seriously reconsider the amount of "things" and "stuff" in my life. I decided it was time to get rid of clothing I never wore and the things in my drawers that were useless and unnecessary. I tackled my closet first, getting rid of a good number of clothes that I never wore and were no longer in interested in. Shoes came next and jewelry. Then, I lived with it for awhile.
Meanwhile a friend introduced me to a neat blog he came upon - mnmlist.com. I perused the blog with fascination and admiration for the author's simpler lifestyle. I was particularly attracted to this post:
"Stop buying the unnecessary.
Toss half your stuff, learn contentedness.
Reduce half again. List 4 essential things in your life,
do these first,stop doing the non-essential.
Clear distractions, focus on each moment.
Let go of attachment to doing, having more.
Fall in love with less."
things: clothing, shoes, cosmetics, books. I was soon to be leaving on my cycling trip, so my purging was coupled with packing and organizing. Finally I was set for my trip with one small duffel bag, taken up mostly by my sleeping bag and thermarest.
Living this summer with only cycling clothes and 2 shirts, 2 shorts, a pair of jeans, tennis shoes, a fleece, and several other little things allowed me to let go essentially of any connection I had to my stuff. I wore whatever was clean and it didn't really matter - twas the nature of the trip. When I returned home this fall I took my final steps to really defining myself as a minimalist, getting rid of most my books, jewelry, clothing, single-use kitchen items, office things, bags, and more.
The journey to becoming a minimalist is never ending - I continue to donate things and question my need for certain items. In particular, I am always questioning how I can have more functionality with less. I'm still on the search for the perfect minimalist wardrobe...just enough clothing to cover all my activities, but not too much.
So far, I'm loving it. Minimalism is the lifestyle for me.
Why I did it?
1) Stuff is stressful - being surrounding by lots of stuff is outright stressful for me; stuff management (also known as organization) is not fun; whenever you move you have to bring all your stuff.
2) Most stuff is unnecessary - when comes right down to it, most people probably don't use half the things in their homes; so, I ask, why own it? I personally would rather only be in possession of the things I use frequently.
3) I'm searching for simplicity in life - I want the simplicity of a walk in the woods, to be the simplicity of my everyday life. In 21st century society, this is hard to come by. For me, simplicity is going to be a lot easier to achieve with less choices of outfits and more time to focus on what really matters.
4) To practice non-attachment - attachment to stuff is unhealthy...
5) I am not my stuff - I don't want to be defined by my stuff and so there's no reason to have a lot of it.
6) Less consumeristic - it seems like a funny correlation, but it seems the more you have, the more you buy...you're searching, essentially, for the perfect item - this is not my style. With less things, I only have to buy the necessary items, once they ware down.
At the core of it all, minimalism is not owning as few things as you can, it's owning only those things that are essential to you and making a conscious decision to be in possession of each and every item you own.
