Minimalism & Mindfulness
One documentary. That’s all it took. One, really well put together, eyeopening documentary. Minimalism: A Documentary About The Important Things. For someone who depletes her debit card every time Black Friday comes around or when I feel like I need new stuff, I never in a million years thought that I would find myself connect with an ideology such as minimalism.
Minimalism does not mean getting rid of everything you own to the point where you’re sitting in an empty room in the middle of an empty house with only one pair of shoes on. No. The idea of minimalism makes you rethink what you value, what brings you happiness, and encourages you to no longer displace those feelings to objects. Think about everything you own. What do you really need? What actually brings you joy and what are the things you actually use often?
Throughout the years I’ve tried endlessly to clean my room, getting rid of trash bag loads of stuff yet I manage to still find myself among countless things that I would save just in case I needed them in the future. In the end those things just collected dust at the bottom of my drawers. I’ve found myself binge buying things at the mall because I find things that I might need one day. In the end what I really do is waste money and add more stress to my life. I am not an expert at this new philosophy and I do not call myself a “minimalist”, but I’ve found a new understanding in this way of life. I want to take elements from this thing of “minimalism” and apply it to myself. In this world of noise, distraction, and anxiety it has brought me a form of peace. Minimalism has been my therapy.
When things get too overwhelming, I just pause and try to clean up my life a little bit. It’s more than just throwing my knick knacks away, sometimes this also means I stop talking to people for a bit, delete some social media apps off my phone, and just cut myself off from the chaotic world we live in. I can’t help it. I get stressed out too easily. I can’t change that about me… but what I can change is the amount of stress I bring into my life.
We are always striving to do more, to be more. But what we forget is that we are human. At least for me, I only have a limited amount of time and energy. I’m tired of feeling guilty over the fact that I can’t do everything or be there for everyone. Maybe its time I start rethinking how I use myself. I want to invest more time into…the important things: the people that are in my life right now; the people that matter to me. I want to be mindful, to live in the present. Mindfulness allows me to breathe, stops me from thinking too much, and reminds me to be grateful. We’re all moving so fast.. I just want to slow down.
