Got Stuff or Got Life?
How Minimal Living Can Lighten Your Life
Storage Crisis
Did you know that storage facilities are overtaking the country? I may be exaggerating a bit, but look at these statistics:
• Over the past 40 years, offsite storage has been the fastest-growing segment of the commercial real estate industry (NY Times Magazine) and
• One out of 10 Americans rent space in a storage facility.
• For every man, woman, and child in the U.S. there are 7.3 square feet of self-storage space. Picture this: All Americans could stand together under the total area of self-storage roofing (SSA).
Maybe you don’t rent storage, but I’ll bet you have an area of your home designated for non-closet storage. My own area is the garage.
Speaking of garages, here’s an amazing stat:
A quarter of the people with 2-car garages cannot find room to park their cars inside, and almost a third just have enough room for one vehicle! (U.S. Department of Energy)
Have you ever said to yourself “I need to get rid of everything!”? Are you drowning in stuff? Is your stuff embarrassing you? Is it thwarting you from having a peaceful, organized life?
Table of Contents
How Did it Happen?
How did you accumulate all of that stuff?
Stuff comes from 3 sources:
1. Purchases
2. Gifts
3. Inheritance
And if you are storing things for someone else, that is a problem unto itself.
Yes, we love to buy stuff and sometimes we believe “the bigger the better”. In general, houses are becoming bigger, more spacious. And cars have gotten gigantic. We also love those techy gadgets, to say nothing of the purely decorative clothes, jewelry and household items. And what about kitchen and hobby tools? Books? Sports equipment? DIY supplies?
The Sweetness of the New
Most Americans love to shop, and many people around the world also have a love for shopping. I think it is a human trait to acquire things, as it gives a sense of security and pleasure. Also many products promise to make our lives easier or more luxurious.
Also, we love to shop because shopping is fun. I love to shop, I will admit this. I appreciate beautiful objects, clothing, jewelry, shoes, you name it.
Going to an attractive mall is like entering a fairyland of gorgeous displays of the useful and the frivolous! When I purchase a new item, I do get a sense of temporary happiness.
I don’t think of shopping as a bad activity. It’s often relaxing and stimulating. But are we doing too much shopping?
Women spend approximately eight years of their lives shopping (The Daily Mail)
There are additional reasons for our bent to hit the shopping mall or spend hours poring over product websites, and then finally hit the ‘purchase’ button.
Something to Think About
We want the latest and greatest version of the things we ‘need’. Industry makes sure there are new updated models and styles of everything under the sun.
Advertisers implore us to make sure we keep up with all this progress. Heaven forbid that we become old-fashioned!
Similarly, we are lured into the belief that more stuff brings more happiness. But the sweetness of the new can eventually turn sour when we have to repair, clean, store, discard, sell, or give away.
The average American family spends approximately $1,700 on clothes annually (Forbes)
Of course, we do need to buy necessities and take care of them.
The trick is to choose carefully so as not to let our stuff own us and burden us.
The Buying Battle
Yes, often shopping and buying products becomes excessive. Then it is not shopping but what I call ‘collecting’. Do you ever purchase things that you don’t truly need just out of an urgency to ‘buy’?
Let’s say you go to an art fair. You are having a delightful time looking at all the different art and talking to the artists. Soon the urge to take something home overtakes you. You don’t really need any art, and you could take the artist’s card and contact them later, but….there is that nagging urge to acquire something! Have you ever had a similar experience?
Americans spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches ($100 billion) than on higher education (Psychology Today).
Whatever our income range we are all under a subconscious pressure to ‘have more’ or ‘have something new’.
We all have our own battles with our pocketbook. What’s your battle?
I know I am always thinking about what I ‘need’ to add to my wardrobe, or my hobby supplies. Do you ever have a hard time just putting off a purchase until you can save properly for it?
But where does all this collecting of stuff get us? I’ll tell you:
• Into more debt
• Under more stress
• Burdened with a ton of maintenance tasks
• Less time for relaxing, contemplating, fun with family and friends or being creative
• Working harder and working extra hours in order to pay our increasing debt.
Of course, there is a limit to collecting stuff! That is just the truth and it’s common sense. You can only acquire so much before it becomes a problem. Excess collecting causes distress to individuals and families, due to mounting debt and clutter levels.
Wise Words
To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed.”
A Mountain of Stuff
The trouble is, too much buying piles up if you don’t regularly donate, sell, or discard the items you don’t need anymore. You will eventually run out of room to store them, and you will be overwhelmed just keeping track of your ‘inventory’.
Enter the storage unit ‘solution’.
Debt Dilemma
Regular buying sprees are toxic to your wallet. You may already have a problem with debt because it is so easy to whip out the credit card and hope for the best.
And debt very often causes family squabbles and resentments.
If you believe that the good life is achieved by having as many ‘toys’ as possible, and you also have a debt problem, then you are battling yourself daily and enduring growing stress.
Earning Anxiety
Whether you are in debt or not, you have to keep earning money to pay for all your stuff. You expect to continue your buying habits, and your family expects the same.
Now you have the pressure to earn more and more salary to keep up. At some point you will ask yourself if this merry-go-round lifestyle is what you really want.
Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on nonessential goods – in other words, items they do not need (The Wall Street Journal)
It’s true that if you are earning a big paycheck, the earning can be very satisfying; but if your desire to do so is mostly driven by a need to buy things or pay down consumer debt, your work will be less fulfilling for you.
This burden of earning and owing can harm your health resulting in ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease and all kinds of stress-related illnesses.
The material lifestyle can deteriorate your relationships. Marital fights about money are common, and money woes can taint all manner of relationships.
And there is more danger.
Self Worth Hostage Crisis
The collectionist lifestyle that gets out of control can eat away at your self-worth, and your respect for others.
The pressure to acquire stuff and worries about debt can lead to feelings of inadequacy and failure.
You run this risk: letting the importance of acquiring material possessions take over your life. Earning more to buy more can become your only goal in life.
You do believe in yourself and your intrinsic values, but we all must be careful to not let our property take over our self-worth, little by little. You are not your house, your car, your gadgets and toys.
You are you; and you do not need to impress your friends, family or acquaintances. And you don’t need to impress yourself, either. If you see a problem here, then a careful look at your self-image is in order.
Hidden Clutter
Along with our excess of material clutter, we also can have too much digital clutter and mental clutter.
What do I mean?
Digital clutter includes excessive emails, bookmarks, favorites, files, documents and folders found on our computers and stored on the internet.
Mental clutter includes your to-do lists, worries, guilty feelings, resentments, as well as your goals and dreams. All these thoughts and feelings can weigh you down. It might be refreshing to take an inventory of your mental clutter and pare it down to a more reasonable weight.
Wise Words
Clutter is not just physical stuff, it’s old ideas, toxic relationships, and bad habits.”
The Solution for Too Much Stuff: Minimal Living
How can we rid ourselves of acquisitional anxiety? What should we do about all our excess stuff? What is the antidote to the culture of clutter?
Every culture breeds a counter-culture. In this case, the counter culture is ‘minimalism’.
Minimalism embraces a culture of reductionism, or reducing all the types of clutter in our lives. And it is about consciously recognizing and focusing on those things that provide tangible and ongoing joy to our lives.
Minimalism is personal, however. You must create your own version.
How Will Personal Minalism Help Me?
• You will do what you love and have what you love. When you sell or give away things you don’t need, and resist excess buying, you can then spend money only on the finest and most useful possessions. Everything you see and touch in your life will be beautiful and purposeful.
• Your Activities will be meaningful. Whether fun or serious, your activities will not be frivolous, but have significant meaning for you.
• You will have more time for relationships. When you clear your schedule of unnecessary tasks, finding time for yourself, family and friends will be much easier, and life will be more enjoyable.
• You will create a healthy uncluttered mind. Minimizing your troublesome or toxic thoughts will free your mind for intentional goals, meaningful learning, and helpful problem solving.
Sort your thoughts into categories. Study them. Decide if certain chronic thoughts can be discarded. Learn to problem-solve instead of letting negative thoughts circulate endlessly
• You will have time to ponder. With more space, more time, and better thinking, you may even be able to ponder the bigger questions of life and find more peace.
While you learn about minimalism you can ask yourself: how can I achieve my own best brand of minimalism?
But first,
What Minimal Living is Not
You may have heard of minimalism before and have some notions about it. There are some common misconceptions about this lifestyle that I would like to point out:
1. Minimal living does not require a cold, sparsely furnished home décor. A minimalist can have any décor they wish as long as they love and use their furnishings.
So you can have a warm and cozy atmosphere if you wish where everything adds value to your surroundings and there is nothing frivolous or unnecessary. You can create an uncluttered décor and include the best items that you truly love and use.
2. Minimalism does not mean you have to go all hippy, back to nature, and throw all your material goods away. It simply means determining your needs and wants, what you ‘higher self’ would rather spend time and money on. Focus on those things and release the rest.
3. Minimal living does not mean depriving yourself of your unique passions or pleasures. If you have hobbies or favorite pastimes, narrow them down to the ones that give you the most rewards
4. Minimalism does not make life harder. Minimalism does not require you to give up current technology or conveniences. This lifestyle asks you to take a careful look at your gadgets, and keep only those technologies you truly use efficiently.
For example, take kitchen appliances. Some of them seem like they should save you time, or prepare foods in a new exciting way. But they might end up claiming even more of your time in set-up and/or cleanup. The simpler the tool, the better, is usually true.
No, you don’t have to live like an ascetic mystic. Minimalism celebrates saving your time – time you can use for the most uplifting activities in your life!
Minimalism actually makes life remarkably lighter and easier because you have fewer things to build, clean, maintain, and store. Just get rid of those annoying items that give you a headache! You might feel a bit guilty. You might think you should use your super gizmo. But if it’s just sitting on the shelf, you know why it’s been sitting so long. Do yourself a favor and sell, donate, or ditch it!
5. Minimal living is not about frugality per se; it is more about selective frugality. It is true that some people adopt the minimalist lifestyle because they want to be more frugal; they want or need to save money.
You don’t necessarily have to save any money with your minimalist lifestyle, but you might, since you will avoid certain purchases in order to secure space and time for your selected activities. On the other hand, you might spend more money by spending all you want on the best-of-the-best items that you truly love and use.
6. Minimalism does not forbid collections. Your collections are important to you. You collect antiques, or china, or art, or thimbles and these items bring you delight and intellectual stimulation.
Minimalism does not mean you must get rid of these hobbies, but just the opposite. Keep those collections, keeping in mind to use moderation; you can spotlight your favorite items and avoid an out-of-control collection.
Similarly your creative hobbies are an uplifting part of your life. Arts and crafts come to mind. Minimalism says ”please be creative” but stay in one ‘area’ at a time and diminish the others temporarily.
7. Minimal living does not forbid kids. Some people have the notion that only single people or couples without children can really be minimalists.
After all, you can’t have clutter when you are a minimalist, and kids seem to entail a cloud of things – baby tools, toys, craft materials and sports equipment, and these can be different for each child. And you don’t want to deprive children of things that will enhance their growth.
If you look at it in another way, however, families can gain a lot by adopting minimalist practices. Families may need minimalism more than singles in order to keep all the juvenile paraphanalia under control. But how?
It’s about being a good gatekeeper; getting and keeping only the things that are used and loved and donating/selling the excess regularly.
If you have several kids you probably enjoy passing down the best toys and clothes to the younger ones. So a family like this will have to have an organized storage system in place for the best items to be kept for the future.
Only you can decide how to manage your children’s necessities – and doing this with a minimalist viewpoint will work incredibly well.
8. Minimalism is not a set of rules. You don’t have to restrict yourself to a certain number of books, pairs of shoes, towels, dishes, etc. to be minimalist. However, if you think some rules will help you, then by all means try them out. Everyone is unique and will have unique tools for reaching a goal.
But minimalism does not have to be too militaristic. For example you could have a goal of keeping 50 books in your home but if you have 60 and they are all useful and cherished, who’s really counting? The minimal police will not arrest you!
9. Minimal living is not only about physical stuff. It is also about your philosophy about stuff, and your relationship with all types of stuff: physical, digital, mental, emotional stuff as well as activities.
Everything in your environment and in your mind should include only that which is necessary to your well-being, and your effectiveness. Everything else? That is what trash cans, charities, family, friends and prayer are for.
10. Minimalism is not anti-consumer or anti-capitalist. Minimalism is not an anti-consumer philosophy. You as a minimalist do not have to be against consuming. You do not have to be against capitalism. You can spend more money purchasing fewer but higher-quality items, if your budget permits.
As a minimalist you can either save money or spend more money. But you will do so mindfully and in better control of your choices. Again, you will have only what you love and use.
What Minimal Living Is – For You
Following are the 5 attributes of minimaL living.
1. Less Stuff
To repeat, minimalism embraces a culture of “less is more”.
Minimalism is about getting rid of anything you don’t need and freeing your time and resources for that which makes you happy. It is not about denial – it is about keeping the things and thoughts that give you satisfaction and peace.
2. Less Chaos
Minimalism is about having less chaos in your life. You can to step back from the frenzy of earning and spending and use both time and money on more value-driven pursuits.
Reducing debt and spending less cuts stress and the feelings of being in a chaotic hamster-wheel.
The anxiety of ‘getting nowhere’ is replaced by the enjoyment of following authentic personal goals.
For example, if you stop fretting about owning the nicest car, the biggest house or the best of everything, you begin to connect with yourself based more on who you are rather than what you have.
Thought to Ponder
So, minimal living is not just about reorganizing your home or your closet.
It is also about reorganizing your thoughts. It is about proactively adopting a life-changing mindset that is based on values and peace.
3. More Personal Freedom
Minimalism brings about the freedom to enjoy a relaxed uncluttered lifestyle. A lifestyle that is free from the burden and pressure of “having the newest product”, free from the notion that the more we possess, the happier we will be.
You see, many people take for granted the belief that having the newest, the best, the largest, is optimal. But maybe not. What do you believe? You might have to think this through. I know I did.
Also, earning money to buy stuff is not all it’s cracked up to be. Your career choice does not have to depend on a large salary. Many minimalists freely choose their particular career because they love the work. The money they earn from this work is not the biggest influence on their choice, because job satisfaction is more important to them.
Freedom from chronically acquiring and maintaining possessions will provide time and energy for pursuits that have far more enduring rewards.
Things do not buy happiness. Experience, pleasure and memories that come from spending money wisely can bring happiness.
For example, memories from a wonderful holiday or knowledge gained from a museum tour will last a lifetime and add so much to your own personal development.
4. Less Debt
Can you imagine a life free of debt? Many people instantly think that would require a pay raise, or a higher paying job.
The truth is, after a pay raise, most people’s spending habits expand to suck up the extra income, and the debt keeps rising too!
Minimalists usually put the brakes on spending. They purchase more thoughtfully, and eventually their debt decreases.
When people on their deathbed have been questioned, their regrets often turn to things they didn’t do, not things they didn’t buy along the way.
Surprisingly, when you clear your life of accumulated clutter you feel empowered to resist the buying trap and to stay out of debt.
5. More Time
Almost everyone complains that they never have enough time for the things they love. However very few people stop and look at what they are spending their time doing, they just keep doing the same thing over and over.
Minimalists avoid an overflowing calendar. They keep a trim calendar and choose their activities wisely so they can use their time most effectively.
Minimalists spend less time working long hours to pay off unnecessary debt. This creates an opening that can be filled with doing the things they love, things that they never used to have time for.
You can practice this, too. When you don’t have as many things to keep up with, it gives you more time for the mental and spiritual aspects of life. You can relax into activities that make you genuinely happy.
The Minimal Lifestyle
Here is a sum up of the minimalist lifestyle.
Minimalists have found happiness from a lifestyle that incorporates freedom of choice; freedom to choose a life-path that allows them to march to the beat of their own drum.
Minimalists generally enjoy a centered life filled with activities they choose, from meditating in a hammock to climbing Mr. Everest.
Minimalists live with the intentional purpose of including only the things they value most in their life. All aspects of life improve when the mind is free of excessive outside influence or the temptation to collect unnecessary things.
Minimalists are persistent list makers, who must have a focused shopping list before hitting the shops and they are rarely tempted to purchase anything that isn’t on the list. They feel their list making empowers them to keep their life centered.
Similarly, minimalists believe that when their goals and plans are laid out in an orderly fashion on paper, they are able to logically work on them.
Creating physical space simplifies life and allows minimalists to express their priorities.
In the home of a minimalist space is valued almost as much as the contents.
Possessions are chosen carefully and although the home is spacious it is rarely boring. The appreciation for quality and the finer things is obvious Only furnishings that are loved and have a useful purpose are included.
Wise Words
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ---Leonardo Da Vinci, 1501
The Minimal Living Mindset
It is not necessary to go back to the “dark ages” to be a minimalist.
To embrace minimalism does not mean sacrificing modern day conveniences. It does not mean living like a monk.
It means having the mindset that places more value on what truly makes a person happy and content.
They feel good about themselves because of who they are and what they do, not because of what they own.
Minimalists like to be themselves. They don’t try to impress themselves or others. This attitude leads to happier relationships with others.
Good Point
Minimalists’ happiness increases when they declutter their lives.
They become aware of how much lighter and easier life is when it is simplified.
Minimize Your Life
Minimalists tend to be more relaxed, mindful and fully aware of what their goal is at each given moment.
The philosophy of a minimalist is ‘less is more’, enabling them the freedom to find happiness through an uncomplicated lifestyle.
Essentially, when everything in your home, your schedule, your mind and your heart has a useful purpose you are living at a higher level.
Minimalists know from experience, and you can too, that true happiness comes from a life spent doing what you love; enjoying each day, being thankful, and being proud of your achievements; growing spiritually and living a life that affirms your deepest values.
See related posts:
How to Minimize – Declutter Your House in 7 Steps
