Minimalism. Living with More with Less

Your blog feed may be different from mine, but mine's full of minimalism and simple living.  For some this is a major change of heart and mind, whilst others may be jumping on the latest bandwagon.  

Minimalism is about only having the things you need, living with less, putting less value on things and more on people, relationships, experiences and taking care of the environment.  

Minimalism is a lifestyle while decluttering is a process.  Clean, tidy, take stuff to the charity shop. Rinse and repeat. 

 

We're never going to be fully fledged minimalists but we've borrowed a few things from it. Like trying not to shop mindlessly or valuing things more than people.  

We're constantly told we need lots of stuff to be happy, successful and prove how great we are.  So not true. The Pinterest perfect lifestyle doesn't exist.  Trying to achieve it makes us tired, miserable and broke.

People are more valuable than stuff and investing in ourselves by doing things we enjoy and learning new skills is more fun.  Honest!  

Minimalism and simple living is what you make of it.  For some, it's having nothing more than the things they use everyday.  For us, it's trying to buy and use things more thoughtfully, avoiding clutter.  We have weird relationship with decluttering. As our house is only a "borrow", objects make it a home.  But as our house is only borrow, we'll move on eventually. When we do, we only want to take things we love or use with us.  

Having less clutter makes life less stressful and means less cleaning. Less buying and being content with what we already have make the bank statement happier. Knowing where things come from means better choices.  Doing less and spending time more thoughtfully means less rushing around and more time for nice things, like reading and being together.  All good.  

But ... But ... But ... I am cynical.  I wonder how much of what's written about minimalism is less about teaching people to live well with less and more about selling things that claim to give you simpler, happier, better life.  Much of which seem rather dull as they have no patterns, are in neutral colours, classic shapes or rose gold. Except the ones that are in copper.  "If everybody looked the same, would we all stop looking at each other?"   

As a wise man once said, where your treasure is, so will your heart be. True riches - time, health, friends, love, family or ... - not stuff.

I've got some other posts about this.  Some suggestions for simple lifestyle changes to incorporate minimalism into daily life without breaking a sweat and more detail about what we've been doing to keep us honest and one about loving the stuff you own.  Oh, three posts then.

Let me know what you think about this in the comments.

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