Minimalism
The less you own, the less owns you.
We have been listening, reading, watching about minimalism everywhere. But what exactly does this term refer to, Is it about living with less, selling everything which is not useful, living a cubicle life, or what?
Minimalism is not about quantity it’s more about quality.
Inapt mark
The current world is all about numbers (as in profits, purchasing, power, etc.). That’s the reason why everyone connects happiness to stuff or materials. More we buy - more we are happy, but that’s not the case. The problem with things is that they can never make someone happy. The former statement is proved by science as well. So why do we buy so so much if they are not making us happy? because we are in a trap of advertisements or marketing machine. Most people are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day. They constantly remind us to buy buy buy. Ads take us in the illusion that if we buy what they are vending, then we are gonna feel happy, and if not then they will make us feel outdated. They try to make their product or service so relatable and helpful to our routine that we can’t resist buying it. Ahhhh….. Here the loop starts. Just after a small time of our purchase, the advertisers will try to make us unhappy, depressed by showing more relatable and upgraded products/services. This time it will be better, shinier, and more elegant. Ughh… back to the starting point. The fashion industry has 52 fashion weeks, everything we buy today is going to be old-fashioned or outdated next week. Also, there is this social media that constantly remind us to buy as much. Today our value to society is wrapped up in how much money we pour into it. This thing is surely affecting our time, our peace of mind, and also clarity. The Stuff we keep in our lives is affecting how we live our lives.
The Amendments
Minimalism tells us to be a conscious keeper. Minimalism makes a dyad between the word Enough and Greed. We have to set the limits of how much is enough money, rent, food, equality, love, power, etc. The question is how we are going to do that? We will proceed through identification and then elimination.
First, we have to identify what is important to us, which things are adding value to our lives and which are not. For identification, we have the 90|90 rule.
Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus explain this as- Pick anything around you and ask yourself, Have you used that item in the last 90 days? If you haven’t, will you use it in the next 90? If not then it’s Ok to let it go. You can be flexible with the days. Maybe it isn’t for 90 it can be for 120, 200, or a year. This is how we classify things into useful or not. Coming to the second step-Elimination, it can be done through several processes like you can sell things off, maybe auction them, or the best you can donate them to needy ones.
This process will help us to strengthen our Health, Relationships, Growth, Volunteering, Contribution, Focus, and a lot more.
Do remember, Experience > Stuff.
Love People and use things because the opposite never works.
Till Next time…
References- theminimalist.com, Kevin Cavenaugh, Elizabeth o Dulemba
