Some ideas about minimalism
Minimalism is all about having enough. It’s about having only what you need, no more, and especially no less.
‘What you need’ can refer especially to your possessions, but can also include your commitments, relationships, work and lifestyle.
There are people who wake up in the morning only to look forward to an hour of sitting in their car in bad traffic, then sitting at their desk doing a job that makes them bored or tired, then going home exhausted and sitting in front of the TV, then spending their weekends spending the money they earned to buy things that ‘make them happy’ when all they’re really doing is perpetuating the cycle.
I’ve learned that minimalism can be done anywhere you go and it doesn’t require that you move to a farm or give up your contact with people. Just the opposite: minimalism is about giving up consumption in favor of doing things you’re passionate about and having real relationships with a few people you really value. I’d much rather have a conversation with someone doing something amazing than go shopping.
If you’ve already paid, for example, $15 for an all-you-can-eat buffet, you can either eat about $15-25 worth of food, or stuff yourself with junk until you’re about to burst. Either way, you’re still going to be paying the same amount of cash and the register when you leave, except that you’ll also pay the price for a stomachache later on or in the long term, you’ll pay the price in your weight or health:
- Business people push on with projects that aren’t working because they’ve already invested a significant sum of money.
- People refuse to change their minds about certain things because they’ve already spent a lot of their lives believing things are one way and not the other.
- Toxic relationships are held onto because those involved have already put in a lot of time and emotion into the relationship and don’t want it to be for nothing.
- People who live in houses with fixed utility bills use way more gas/electricity/water. They waste environmental resources because there is no incentive to use less.
- Junk is stored in people’s garages etc. because the owners don’t want to sell it knowing they won’t get back what they paid for it.
Resources that have been irrecoverably spent shouldn’t influence your future decisions on what you do with it.
Economists like to call it ‘throwing good money after bad’.