Minimalism—a Trend or a Truth?

I don’t know what I expected when I set out to be a minimalist. I thought I’d be rewarded with something—a sense of being unburdened, a renewal of energy, or a burst of happiness, at the very least. Clearly, I had been missing out—minimalism, it appears, can be the answer to all of the big questions, from the definition of consciousness to the end of global warming.

The opposite of minimalism—excess consumption—is to blame for almost all that’s wrong with us today. Joshua Becker (The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own) is clear about the evils of having too much stuff:

“While excess consumption leads to bigger houses, faster cars, fancier technology, and cluttered homes, it never brings happiness. Rather, it results in a desire for more. It redirects our greatest passions to things that can never fulfill. And it distracts us from the very life we wish we were living.”

I looked around—a bit sheepishly. My house is filled with stuff. Years of garage sales, shopping, and ‘storing’ things for my grown children left me with boxes of stuff, stuff I no longer used, stuff I couldn’t identify, stuff I’d lost in all of the other stuff.

I didn’t know where to start. I opened all of the closet and cupboard doors and did a visual sweep. It didn’t look good. This wasn’t a one-person job. I needed help—and I found lots of it online:

Let it all go, one guru said, see what stays.

Start small, another expert intoned.

Make two piles, someone else suggested.

This was no time to philosophize, I decided, so I took the direct approach:

I started with Step One

I picked up the items, one by one. Beginning with the small appliances, a juicer, a toaster that didn’t work, I asked these questions:

1. Is it useful?
2. Does it represent a happy memory?
3. Is it beautiful?

If the answer was ‘yes’ to any one of those questions, it stayed. If the answer was ‘no’, it went into another pile.

Finally, hours later, I had one big pile of stuff that was of no use to me, that didn’t represent a happy memory, and that didn’t enhance my life with its beauty.

Should I toss it all out? No—that would be wasteful, and bad for the environment.

It was time for Step Two:

I made three piles:

1. Stuff to be given away
2. Stuff to be recycled
3. Stuff to throw away

But suddenly (and this might happen to you too), I went through a fit of indecision:

• What if this screw, or bolt is an important part of a broken something that I’ll want to fix?
• What if my cousin found out I gave her ugly needlework away?
• What if I finally found the right glue that would mend this broken plate?
• What if I had this painting appraised, and it was worth millions?
• What if I decided to do my ancestry, and I would finally know who was in all these old photos?
• What if I found the missing part of this puzzle?
• What if the fish came back to the creek, and this fishing line would come in handy?

Despite of all this second guessing, I finally finished, and I now had three piles to dispose of.

Did I do it right? Was I now a minimalist?

I decided to go back online for confirmation.

That’s when I came across this—written by well-known blogger and respected minimalist, Leo Babuata:

“One of the things I love about minimalism is that it doesn’t end. You don’t get to a minimum of things and say, “I’m done.”It’s a constant paring down. And that’s a good thing. Why would you want to keep doing it, instead of just completing the process? Because the process of paring down is really the process of asking yourself, “What’s important?”

Okay, I get it. Start small, ask questions, sort into boxes, repeat, possibly forever.

I plunked the juicer and toaster back in a bag, shoved the boxes into a corner, and went out.

Maybe I’ll go shopping.