The First Thing You Need To Know About Minimalism
Minimalism is about more, not less.
You may think that minimalism is a way of life where you don’t have anything. You live poorly and with no Prada purses nor Rolex watches. After all, minimalist is about having only the minimum amount of things, right?
Well… not exactly.
As Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus said, “minimalism is not about having less, less and less; it’s about eliminating what don’t have value to you and create room for more, more and more”. Steve Jobs didn’t remove all the buttons from iPhone just because less is cool. He did it to make room for things better than buttons. Minimalism is a way of life for removing what is not essencial to you so you can keep only what matters.
Steve Jobs didn’t remove all the buttons from iPhone just because less is cool. He did it to make room for things better than buttons.
I’m not saying that a minimalist should simply replace everything. Somethings do need to be eliminated. But elimination is the method, not the goal. The goal is to be surrounded by things that add value to your life, and get rid of anything that doesn’t.
Elimination is a necessary process to minimalism, but not the goal. The goal is to end up with only what matters.
But if that’s the case, why minimalism people have so few things?
I’m so glad you asked.
The Two Theorems of Minimalism
Once you decide to have only what brings value to your life, you discover what is known as the Two Theorems of Minimalism:
#1: Before you reach minimalism, half the things you have has no value. You have them “just in case”, or because it’s too hard to throw it out.
#2: There aren't that many things worth-buying in the world.
If you are skeptical about these theorems, I suggest you a little experience called Packing Party: if you pack everything you have in your house, with no exceptions, and only unpack what you need to use, how many things would stay packed forever?
That’s right. More than half.
How to Define What Has Value
People may say that what matters in life are the experiences you have, the places you know, the friendships you make, or the knowledge you obtain. Although no one can denied these are all great things to have, no one can tell you what has value to you. It's your job to figure out, and you don't need to come up with socially accepted answers. Maybe having a nice car makes you happy, or nothing has value to you such as having a nice body. Who gives a shit if people think this is superficial? Minimalism provides you a mindset to help you achieve happiness and satisfaction, but what you do with this mindset is nobody's business.
No one can tell you what has value to you. It’s your job to figure out, and you don’t need to come up with socially accepted answers
Can I Be A Minimalist and Have a Lot of Things?
I always like to answer this with one simple sentence:
"You could. But you would be the first one."
As the Two Theorems of Minimalism states, if you have a lot of things, you may be carrying too much. And if you want to buy too much, you are not getting only what has value. Despite the goal of minimalism is not simply remove everything, having less than the average guys is an expected resulted from the minimalist philosophy.
Where Can I Found More Information About Minimalism?
There are a lot of literature around there on minimalism, and I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, most of them has no value (get it?). A great starting point is The Minimalists website, not only because those guys are awesome, but because their content can connect you with some other great materials on the subject. If you are ready for book format, I recommend Joshua Becker's "The More of Less", who also created the website Becoming Minimalist.
