minimalism
thought 14
Hey, hipsters! There’s a cool new trend in town. It’s called minimalism. Common, join the bandwagon before everyone else is doing it and you have to jump off.
This is what went through my head the first time I heard about minimalism. It seems like the next cool trend. You know, kind of like buying a VW wagon in the 60’s but in the future. But as I learned more, I came to understand minimalism to be a much different and older concept than I first imagined.
Minimalism is almost like Buddhism in that it’s about simplifying your life in order to focus on what is most important. While I’d admit, practicing Buddhism encompasses much more than just shedding your extra stuff, they both share the common thread of letting go.
But minimalism isn’t just selling your set of shot glasses you’ve been collecting for the last 15 years a national park gift shops, it’s about priorities and focus. It transcends much further than material possessions as well. It’s removing the stuff that doesn’t really matter in life and focusing on what does. It’s saying, I’d rather spend my time having a good conversation with my dad than worrying about the next cool gadget that’s coming out because that’s more important. But here is where things get tricky and personal I might add.
Only you know what minimalism means. You defined what is important and what is not. If those shot glasses serve an important role in your life, keep them. But understand they now command your focus, energy, and attention.
Minimalism is about removing things, people, thoughts, activities and anything else from your life that keeps you from reaching your goals and ultimately happiness. It’s about realizing and acting on the fact that some things matter and some things don’t. It’s about taking super big giant large baby steps towards focusing on happiness at the cost of the latest iPhone or whatever’s holding you back.
And ultimately it’s about, as someone once said,
Caring about people and using things instead of the other way around.
stay tuned.
Sterling
