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Minimalism Is Not About Getting Rid of Stuff
Wanting less is just a lovely side-effect
Introduction
Minimalism is the surest path for middle-income earners to generate wealth.
Why?
Because wealth is the difference between what you own and what you owe. What you own are assets (stocks, bonds, real estate, crypto), and what you owe are liabilities (student loans, credit card loans, mortgages). Therefore, wealth generation comes from two sources: by maximizing what you own and by minimizing what you owe.
What makes minimalism so attractive, at least to financial experts, is that it optimizes the liabilities part of the wealth equation.
It’s unfortunate, then, that minimalism gets such a bad rapport. I’ll never forget when I mentioned to a friend of mine the many benefits of minimalism. When I finished, he shrugged, and said, “Yeah, but I don’t want to get rid of my stuff.”
I didn’t press the issue because I wanted to avoid an argument.
If I had responded to him, however, I would have told him that minimalism is not about getting rid of stuff.
Wanting less is just a lovely side effect.