Journey to Minimalism: Days 18–21
[Sorry for the relatively incoherent post below — Just thoughts and experiences about many different ways I continued going Minimalist…]
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“Just in case”
How many items do we have “just in case we’ll need it later?” Turns out I had a lot.
I’ve found it’s a relatively common experience to have items we keep “just in case.” “Just in case I need it one day.” “Just in case I have a friend that needs to borrow this exact thing next year.” Just in case, just in case. Just. In. Case. I would say these are three of the most misleading and anxiety provoking words when trying to go Minimalist.
I laid out every single item in my closet, kept every item I know I’ll wear within the next 2–3 months, or that I wore within the past 2–3 months, and forced myself to make a pile of every “just in case” item so I could give them away.
I went through my sticky notes on my computer entitled “Extra Links” where I saved probably at least 100 links over the past few years. This sticky note consisted of links that “I want to eventually look at but I don’t really want to right now.” As I sifted through the (longer than I’d like to admit) list of links,
I didn’t let myself click on a single link. I simply briefly read the URL addresses and promptly deleted (unless there was one that I will make myself read within the next few weeks). Most of the URL addresses were to Seventeen Magazine sites, or Buzzfeed, etc. Not saying anything negative about those sites (I still read articles from them sometimes) — but I noticed a lot of the links were to articles that I can’t even remember why or how I thought it would be important to read. To this day, I don’t know why I thought they were so important that I had to keep them on my desktop for years.
I also scrolled through all of my “Saved Links” in Facebook that I’ve accumulated over the past few years, honestly. I spent about 20 minutes going through and deleting links or quickly reading articles and then deleting them from my account because I found that seeing the notification of how many “unopened links” I’ve saved stresses me out. I never realized that until I started deleting links and removing myself from Facebook groups that I didn’t even know I was still a part of. I’ve also tried to be more conscious of what I “like” on Facebook. Not because “liking” something is inherently bad, but because I never stopped to think about why I liked a random post from Seventeen Magazine, or how me liking a post about an NBA player affected anybody else. It certainly wasn’t benefitting me or adding to my life in a productive way. I’m slowly trying to detach from social media. Not completely. But enough so that eventually I will be able to tell myself that I am not run by or dependent on social media feeds.
I was listening to “Stuff,” episode seven of The Minimalists’ podcast on Youtube and one part that stood out to me in particular was when they discussed how the more “stuff” you own, the more “stuff” you have to take care of. I never really thought of consumption in that way, and this changed my perspective. I fell into the easy “trap” so-to-speak of thinking that consumption provides instant satisfaction, but as I’m starting to live with less, and redefine my priorities in life, I’m finding that over-consumption (which I’ve found is the real struggle- not necessarily consumption itself) actually stressed me out more.
I think my next steps involve going through more “just in case” items (not just clothes, but all the little things I have in my room that just sit there and accumulate dust for months), and continuing my social media/ technology cleansing process.
Final thought: Simplifying and minimizing has already helped me engage more in experiences rather than consumed by constant distraction.
More to come later…
P.S. Thank you to whoever got through this relatively scattered post — much appreciated.
