Last month, I read an interesting book titled ‘goodbye, things’
In the book, the author has shared his personal experience on adopting the Japanese minimalist way of life. He has even shared the thought process and tips to help anyone who wants a little more space in his/her life.
The book was so effective that I couldn’t read more than two pages without getting up and doing something about what it was trying to convey.
What comes to mind when we think ‘minimalist’? Uncluttered, clean, and simple. We can also say balanced and pure. So, what would a minimalist home and life look like? The book explained this in simple words.
Aren’t most of us going through life collecting things as we go on. Some of them are necessities, some add beauty, some are memorabilia, and some are pure nostalgia. But we are surrounded by them in our own house. What began as an effort to create a warm, homely space for ourselves soon converted into a maximalist project ‘museum’ from which there is no escape.
Yes, minimalism does start with identifying and letting go of things we do not need or things we thought we would use ‘someday’ or those we found pretty at the store and brought home thinking how to get its ‘money’s worth’ while it sits in some corner gathering dust; but this book is not just about getting rid of unnecessary belongings. It pauses to talk about the unseen need to have so many things that we feel define us or our self-worth. We are in a situation where we probably have everything we want but we have been programmed to seek more out of life. Nothing is ever sufficient.
When I picked up the book, I had two boxes full of memorabilia from my past years of travel, which included everything from boarding passes to restaurant bills to entry tickets to brochures, to newspapers to sand and rocks and leaves besides the regular souvenirs – mugs, keychains, frames, etc. I was only adding to it with each trip. So, I took this big step of going through all those things one last time and discarding most of them. I saved a few things for the future, but I know I will never look at them, just like I had never looked back at them in all these years.
This book talks about how fewer things don’t mean less satisfaction and that we can actually find our originality when we are less surrounded by things from the past and the future. Read it to find how fewer possessions will give you more time for yourself, save you from commercial distractions, free you from your past image of yourself so you can focus on your current self and lead to a happier, more fulfilling life.
