I mentioned about the luxury trap last week. This week, I’m going to write about minimalism, which is the opposite of consumerism. Minimalism, as a philosophy of life, is a very wide subject. For this reason, I will share some of my own experiences and will make some suggestions so that you may create familiarity with the subject.
Minimalism started to affect me a while ago. I realized that I have too much to focus on what I have or I can have in my life. I started questioning whether I really needed everything in my home, on my computer, on my phone; in short after I accepted that I had taken much more than I needed.
The most important reason why I am interested in minimalism is that it is a time saving opportunity. I had chosen to use it after I realized that life is too short and therefore I decided to look for ways to use it more efficiently. Minimalism gave me the opportunity to save my precious life time, which was wasted before. In order to save time, I started to take out unnecessary things in my life. I embraced this behavior and made it a part of my life.
Do you need to think minimalist? Let’s ask a few simple questions to understand: Do you have any kitchen utensils that you do not use? What about your dresses that are tight for you? How many DVD movies do you have that you do not plan to watch once more? If your answer is you have plenty, then maybe you need simplification. If you do not use them, why do you have to give a space in your life? Besides, when you have less, you have to spend little time on them. The less things you have in your home, the less time it takes to clean it up. The less you have, the better.
There is a documentary on Netflix about minimalism. In a part of the documentary, two minimalists named Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus mention about their life, before minimalism and after minimalism. Throughout the documentary, they explain how minimalism bring them happiness. Somewhere in the conversation, Joshua makes a very welcome comment about what he has in his current life: “I have little, but everything I have is what I like most. They are my favorites”. Nowadays, I focus on this idea and I take things out of my life that I do not like. For those of you who are curious about minimalism, I highly recommend this documentary.
My personal experience is parallel to the minimalists. As I simplify my life, I noticed that I do not just gain more time, but also I am happier. I can not say that I can simplify as much as a Dutch or English minimalist person, but according to my past times, nowadays little time of mine is spent on unnecessary issues and that makes me a happier person.
Despite so many benefits of minimalism, I have to admit that ideas like project 333 are a bit too much for me. What is project 333? It is a popular idea among the minimalists which means using only 33 outfits for 3 months. But here is the best part of minimalism; how much is enough for you is the target point. If you need more than 33 outfits and each one is your best cloth then it is ok for you.
Moreover, simplification works very well not only in the physical environment, but also in the digital environment. I used to search for a file on my computer so long. Nowadays, I can find what I’m looking for in my computer in a very short period of time.
And here is my favorite: I can clean my whole house in half time. My time lost due to confusion diminished.
In addition to all, minimalism benefits indirectly to my budget. Getting unnecessary things actually means that the money we need is lying in the house. When you throw everything from your life that you do not use, the feeling of need to buy is also getting away. As a result, significant amounts of time and money are being saved. Minimalism is very useful for me. I hope you will use and like it as well. See you next week.