Why You Should Embrace Minimalism

What is minimalism? Take a look at what you have around you at home. How much of it would you label as “junk” or “useless clutter”? Look at your items and ask yourself “does this have a purpose?” and “does having this make me happy?” More and more people are realizing that they have made a grave mistake: they have spent years overconsuming and now are dealing with the consequences of having too much… well, crap. Minimalism plans to fix that. The idea of minimalism is that you take all of those things in your home that do not bring you happiness and have no purpose and get rid of them. Even better, recycle or donate everything that you can for those that will find happiness or use of them. I hope this post will help you to decide what you can do to be a better minimalist.

Another part of minimalism is about the things that you consume on a daily basis but do not necessarily bring home. For example, are you a regular coffee drinker? How about you consider investing in a reusable travel mug and your own coffee maker at home in order to cut back on consumption? There is a spectrum of minimalists out there. Some people are being inspired to declutter their homes and others are so taken by the movement that they are selling their homes and moving into “tiny homes”.

Of course, there are personal reasons to adopt a minimalist approach. Some will argue less clutter = more life. More time to spend with family, to spend on taking care of yourself, to spend doing things you love. Others will say that having more things causes them stress. Then there is the whole concept of “feng shui” which has different meanings to different people and goes all the way back to China over 3,000 years ago, but in today’s society is often thought of as “how the placement of yourself and objects within a space affects your life in various areas of experience.” After a good purging of old things that I don’t need and maybe never did need, I feel lighter and more relaxed. I have also recently found that I don’t like having a bunch of knick-knacks on display. It is too cluttered and takes up too much of my time to clean around.

Minimalist lifestyles have benefits to the environment as well. We are a society that overconsumes almost everything. The clothes we buy, the food, and the products we buy. When populations overconsume these things, the environment and other people suffer. The majority of the Westernized middle-class has more than is needed, whereas our lower-classes and people living in impoverished situations around the world are often lacking basic necessities.

Overconsumption has led to selfish practices that put the wants of a minority of the world’s population above the needs of the majority. Just look at how our consumption practices revolve around plastics. When you buy a product or grab take-out, chances are you are holding at least one item that is plastic, whether it is a bag or a bottle of coke. Did you know that on average an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide per year? These plastic items have taken over landfills, have contaminated groundwater, and caused serious damage to the marine ecosystem.

Another example is our clothing. Companies have become experts at maximizing their profits. Not only are there issues of unfair labour and a total disregard for the rights of factory workers, but this culture of “fast fashion” has impacted the health of the environment through water pollution, the use of toxic chemicals, and textile waste. Polyester is one of the culprits for environmental degradation and I am sure that you can find this material in your closet. When washed, polyester products shed microfibers that add to the rising presence of plastic in the oceans because they are not biodegradable. These plastics/microfibers are ingested by marine life and often times are then eaten by humans.

I am not saying that you need to sell your home in order to be a minimalist, and I completely understand how overwhelming it is to realize all of the things that society has taught us to do needs to change, but I hope that this will help you think before you purchase. Remember to think "Do I need it?", "Will it improve my life?", and "Will my buying it promote unsafe or unjust practices?". Personally, my favourite questions to ask myself when purging are “Will I be wondering where it is tomorrow? Have I thought about this item in the past week?” If the answer is no, after getting rid of it 99% of the time I never think about it again. This also helps when shopping. Leaving an item behind to "think about it" often makes me realize that I never really needed it.

A final tip: An aspect of my personality that makes it more difficult to implement minimalism in my life is my sentimentality. What I suggest to fix that is to take pictures! Technology is great for allowing us to keep digital memories without actually having to deal with the space that physical items take up.

I hope at the very least that this post influences you make some healthy changes to your consumption style! There is no shame in starting small, figuring out what works best for you, and building better consumption habits with time.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/20/consumption-consumerism-americans-buying-stuff How overconsumption is affecting Americans

http://www.anarreshealth.ca/node/798 A variety of videos on the topic

https://www.ecowatch.com/overconsumption-fast-fashion-2399956999.html Overconsumption and fashion