We spend a great deal of our time buying things that we don`t want or need with money that we don`t have to impress people that we don`t actually know. Such is the absurdity of the the modern man.
A concrete definition of Minimalism is different for so many people so I thought that I would take a stab at trying to define it or at least define what Minimalism is to me.
Minimalism is not about getting rid of things, of possessions of not buying or having or of denying your wants. It is simply the art of making room for the things that you really want, the things that will make a solid and lasting difference to your life and will help you move toward attaining your life goals. One of my goals, if I ever overcome my mental health difficulties, is to travel. I`d like to travel through Europe, mostly France, Italy and Croatia. I want to live a life with few possessions other than the things that I absolutely need so that if I do travel I can leave my things behind and not have to worry about them, not have to think about what I`m going to do with my things whilst I spend a couple of years moving about Europe.
Minimalism is about not being held down by your things and this does not just mean your possessions. It also encompasses your emotional and mental baggage and your relationships with others.
It`s tempting in this digital age to feel good about the fact that you have hundreds of Facebook friends or thousands of followers on Instagram, Youtube, Google + et. all but how many of those people do you actually have real emotional and physical relationships with? Would you rather have hundreds of Facebook "friends" who you never meet or have any physical connection too or have five, six, ten, or twenty real friends that you meet regularly and communicate with on a face to face basis over a drink or a meal rather than over a laptop screen or a phone app?
All that Minimalism requires of you is that you consider what you buy and consume. What are the things that you hold onto both in terms of possessions and your emotions. What is really serving you? and what is serving somebody else. For instance did you go shopping and buy that item of clothing because you really really needed it and therefore it is serving you a purpose or did you buy it because the advertisers told you that you needed it and therefore your money in their pockets is only serving a purpose for them. Always consider before making a purchase or an emotional transaction if your planned acquisition is something that is moving you toward your goals and if it isn`t then its probably not worth having.
Minimalism is about removing things from your life thus allowing more room for more freedom to enter and this is the greatest gift that Minimalism can bestow upon us; Freedom. You can loose a fortune and gain it back the next day but I have yet to meet anybody who has found a way to earn back time that they have lost. Time and freedom are merciless and they slip away easily without you noticing. It is not about having less stuff it is about making space for more things that are truly important to you.
Life is not about how much we earn or how much we own it`s about how much we live.
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