Minimalism – a way to a better life

I love minimalism in photography. I have tried to capture it, but it is difficult. Is it easier to apply minimalism to your life and why one should want it?

What is minimalism?

“So what is this minimalism thing? It’s quite simple: to be a minimalist you must live with less than 100 things, you can’t own a car or a home or a television, you can’t have a career, you must live in exotic hard-to-pronounce places all over the world, you must start a blog, you can’t have children, and you must be a young white male from a privileged background.

Minimalism isn’t about any of those things, but it can help you accomplish them. If you desire to live with fewer material possessions, or not own a car or a television, or travel all over the world, then minimalism can lend a hand. But that’s not the point. Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around. Real freedom.”

From: The Minimalists

Does this sound a bit familiar to you, at least one of you? These blurbs are taken from the world-renowned The Minimalist website and these lines were written by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus. You could call these two friends minimalist lifestyle pioneers. In a way what they do is nothing extraordinary or innovative. We kind of all know about this, but never bothered to put it into practice, but they did and got all the fame and fortune.

By their website, they have helped more than 20 million people live meaningful lives with less while using to promote their ideas through their website, books, podcast, and documentary, which you can all find in their web site.

The idea of minimalism

Minimalism is not a new term in the conventional sense, as we know it has been applied in architecture. Showing clean forms with straight lines or lean curves. Basically less is more, also in art. Perhaps most known in photography. The almost empty shots of clean surfaces with one item in it. Sometimes not even that, but the shadow of the pictured gives the depth. We all love those forms and photos, as they say, they are easy on the eyes.

Minimalism as a lifestyle follows more or less the same line, but in there the whole story is around owning possessions. Not only having heaps and heaps, but also giving too much meaning to what we own. Often times we are abandoning more important, such as relationships, passions, personal growth and most importantly our health. Minimalism is foremost about choices. Do you want to have a family, car and a career, you can do all that.

“Minimalism simply allows you to make these decisions more consciously, more deliberately.”

By Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus

Who are minimalists?

Anybody can be a minimalist. You, me or your neighbour. There is no limit. The only limitation is the wish to change and the determination of letting things go that doesn’t matter.

The Minimalists introduce on their website their friends. Some have careers, are married and have six children. Or someone who owns only 51 things and travels all over the world. And a couple who lives in a tiny house and own no car. Though these people are different, they share two things in common: they are minimalists. And minimalism has allowed them to pursue purpose-driven lives.

You may want to ask, how come they all still can be minimalists? Joshua and Ryan help you out here again with summing it up in one sentence: “Minimalism is a tool to rid yourself of life’s excess in favor of focusing on what’s important – so you can find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom.”

How minimalism can help me?

• Eliminate your discontent
• Reclaim your time
• Live in the moment
• Pursue your passions
• Discover your missions
• Experience real freedom
• Create more, consume less
• Focus on your health
• Grow as individuals
• Contribute beyond ourselves
• Rid ourselves of excess stuff
• Discover purpose in our lives

What are exactly things?

Let me come back to the things. Sometimes people call health, relationships, growing also things, yet they are not obvious. Things are just a sad term, we tend to overuse. Things can’t give us happiness and freedom in life, they may help us to get there and to enjoy that. Have you ever heard somebody say that their life is complete now when they have iPhone 11 Pro or that they are driving the latest model of BMW? You may have, but again then they are not your people and it is difficult for us to relate with them.

Happiness, isn’t this the one and only thing we all are craving? While incorporating minimalism into our lives, we can find lasting happiness. This we can’t find through things but through life itself. We can individually determine, what is important and what is not in our lives. This seems like a daunting task and that is how the above mentioned two guys, The Minimalists are trying to help us out. But with every new thing, every change in your life, this can be a bit complicated in the beginning. But it is guaranteed by Joshua and Ryan that your journey towards minimalism gets much easier – and more rewarding – the further you go.

Where to start?

I watched first their documentary. It is available on Netflix. Then I read their book. My first thought is that they will Marie Kondo me, so I will start throwing things out I do not need. It didn’t happen. But I know it will happen. Firstly I needed to understand what is important and who is important. What is my passion and what I like doing? Giving up things is the next step. I can’t tell you this is the right way to start. But I feel like this is what I want to share to inspire others like I was inspired.

Hopefully, this little intro was useful for many of you and maybe helped some to get back on track. While writing this, I am thinking of the knick-knacks drawer what desperately needs some minimalist touch….but I hope this act of writing, while seated by a clean desk with just a bunch of field flowers in a reused iron supplement dark glass bottle and a laptop in front of me, helped me pursue my passions, create more, grow as an individual and contribute beyond myself.

May be also a useful read: Change your mindset, change your life!