Minimalism: The Only Road to Happiness

The Art of Getting More with Less

4 min readMar 26, 2023

I heard a story once about the writers Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. They were at a party in the home of a billionaire. Kurt said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel ‘Catch-22’ has earned in its entire history?” Joe replied, “I’ve got something he can never have. The knowledge that I’ve got enough.” ~ Patrick Rhone

Has this ever occurred to you that there might be an alternate template of this crazy chaotic life you are living? You try to ease your pain and solve your problems by getting more toys and goodies, but in fact, you get even more confused day by day!!

The irony is, the excessive amount of stuff and things itself is the problem! We have surrounded ourselves with so much clutter that the things we need are no longer distinguishable from the ones we no longer need or we never needed in the first place.

Here comes the concept of minimalism, which means:

Being intentional in letting things and people into one’s life, creating limitations and boundaries, having purpose, and committing to certain values.

Minimalize the things around you

Have you ever seen a child happy with his room full of toys?! Every new gadget can keep him satisfied only for a little while. The desire remains the same whether he has got five toys or a hundred! The number doesn’t matter. ENOUGH doesn’t exist for them.

What this teaches us is that the human nature mostly confuses the desires with the needs, and it doesn’t end here, it also forgets to draw a boundary to the wishes, because there are no limits to the human desires and wishes, and that’s exactly why most of us always hit the sack unsatisfied and disappointed, trying to fill an unfillable void, attempting to achieve the impossible.

There’s an alternative though…

What if you put a stop to all this madness, stop repeating this vicious cycle and start going the other way around?!

Get rid of all the unnecessary stuff at once. Clear your space only for the things you need mostly.

Next time, before you buy something, ask yourself: “Does this add any value to my life?” Because at the end of the day, you realize you don’t need things, what you really need is “happiness and peace”, and the truth is, you cannot achieve that by being distracted, stressed and going over budget.

Minimalize the people around you

“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

The quotation states that a healthy relationship and conversation is not possible among more than three. Our nature, time and mental capacity doesn’t allow that. Every connection has certain requirements, and with having too many relations, you either have to drain yourself with fulfilling all their requirements, or disappoint a lot of people, which might include your beloved ones.

For you, to have a happy and peaceful life, you need to reduce your connections to a minimum and learn saying “NO” to the disruptive and distracting colleagues and neighbours.

Minimalize your activities (to make room for the most important)

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” ~ Socrates

You need to critically examine your daily activities, and see what you are spending most of your day in. in the modern age, we are surrounded by millions of recreational gadgets and apps that drain our time and attention to the core. On the very top it is the modern cocaine, aka the social media.

Read my article on “The New Cocaine: The Social Media” here:
https://medium.com/p/8d144e2b1a7c

In order to lead a successful life, you need to identify your MVAs (Most Valuable Activities), and then make room for them in your daily life. Make sure you don’t ignore daily exercise, sleep cycle and reading. To let your MVAs have the most of your time and attention, you will have to skip a lot of unnecessary and invaluable activities.

“Time and attention are your most limited resources. Be fiercely protective of how you spend them.” ~ Patrick Rhone

Where to begin?

Check out the following websites and read and learn more about becoming one of the people who have transformed their lives by being minimalists.

LifeEdited (https://lifeedited.com/)
Project 333 (https://bemorewithless.com/project-333/)

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