Three Minimalist Lessons in My Thirties (ARCHIVE)
Originally posted March 21, 2017
This week happens to be my birthday week. The last year has been a powerful one for me, and I think a lot of it has to do with minimalism. It is thirteen months now since I started downsizing my belongings. While I’m losing the material baggage, it feels like emotional parts of me are also shedding layers. I feel like I have finally figured out how to live. I thought it would be fun to write a post about what I have learnt in this time.
We don’t need nearly as much stuff as we have. In the past I held onto a lot of things that I didn’t use simply because they were ‘my things’. I never really thought about whether they were useful to me or not. I had a lot of stuff that I was simply in the habit of owning. Sometimes it has been hard to remove those things because of this habit. Over the last year I have realised that when an object is not used, it is junk. After getting rid of so much, I am still finding stuff in my apartment that I have not used in months or years.
Material possessions take up time, effort, money and space. Time was made for enjoying, not for dealing with junk. This is one of the most important lessons of minimalism, and it is the thought that stops me if I’m ever tempted to get something I don’t really need. Those early purges last year were a nightmare. I’d only just spent weeks shoving all my junk into the apartment and shortly after I was desperately trying to get rid of it. My rule now is to not buy anything I’m not sure I’ll need.
Your space should reflect how you really live. I did a whole post about adapting space to suit needs. Our homes do not need to look a specific way. We can adapt any part of our space to suit our real needs. Forget about how a space is ‘supposed’ to be used, and fill it with the things that are useful to you. Don’t worry about what you’ve been told a home should look like, make it reflect your life.
Here’s to another year of learning how to live better!
❤️
