I am bit annoyed at these feel-goody "minimalism" articles, almost always inevitably written by some rich kid, who, if they were to live their preachy minimalism, could at moments notice buy the thing they need in that moment.<p>For everyone else on this planet for whom financial security is not a given, it makes sense to keep more things around than needed in a given instance.<p>So yeah, if you want to declutter your life, go ahead. But don't think that your newly discovered boring lifestyle choices are somehow so good that everyone else needs to make them as well.<p>Especially if the depth of it is "have and do less things, I promise it will make you happy".
My 2cts, not trying to convince anyone :) Just giving perspective; might help some.<p>There are many ways to do this. The easiest I found is moving away from toxic environments which, for me (it's personal; other people have different experiences I guess), are cities. You can get everything 'same day', you see many people 'having things' and 'having better lives than you have' (perceived) around you. And a lot of people are showing off their things you don't have; sports cars, new boobs, latest smartphone and so on. And that, even if you don't do it consciously, builds on stress levels, on top of the stress that you 'have to do stuff' otherwise you cannot pay for your tiny, very expensive apartment. Most people I know (exclusively living in cities) don't even dare to invite people in their homes unless they have stuff to show off in there minuscule city dwellings of E800k.<p>In my village people are down to earth, no-one shows off, you get a villa + pool + huge garden for a fraction of what you had in the city and you can survive there for a very long time with very little money because it is much cheaper AND there is a barter economy as well (I fix old computers for people and get food for instance).<p>I would never go back. I think a lot of younger people (me in my younger years) think they cannot live without the 'liveliness' of the city while burning themselves out. Not sure about the numbers obviously but most my friends have since moved and everyone regrets not doing it earlier.<p>Edit: rereading I notice my negative tone about city dwellings; that's because I cannot imagine / phantom that anyone would want to live in a cramped apartment <i>ever</i> and definitely not for that price. While I did when I was in my 20s and I was convinced I would never leave. But I was wrong; in hindsight I was just scared. Once we did try (my wife being a HUGE ex-city living fan, far more than I was) we literally turned 180deg.
Obsession to things and materialism is not something good, but simply saying be happy with what you got is not always true. Let's say you want to buy a new computer, do you need it because the one you have already is not sufficient or is it just for bragging rights, when it's the latter you probably will find some after-rationalization, that you will need it when you try to make some new big data tool or play games. Humans are not very good at critically evaluating their possessions, we become emotionally attached to some of our things and might start to hate other things, e.g: anthropomorphizing our car doesn't do us any good. Sometimes it's better not to have a car than do this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b67l_yxUc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b67l_yxUc</a> (Basil Attacks His Car - Fawlty Towers - BBC)
One of the people who I don't know personally but admire a lot in this regard is Derek Sivers (creator of cdbaby.com). If you've got 5 mins, you'll just love reading this article by him "Why I gave away my company to charity" [1]<p>I was listening to his audio-book and in the end he tells his story where he gave all of his money away (I think it was like 95% of the money away to create an institution for up and coming artists). It's just truly inspiring.<p>[1] <a href="https://sivers.org/trust" rel="nofollow">https://sivers.org/trust</a>
I really believe that due to connectivity and the emergence of a connected lifestyle we now can live in smaller more quiet areas and still have our bare essentials. This is a great article and I really hope people embrace the way more than just the buzz of minimalism. It has freed me in a way and I was lucky to stumble along it.