Embracing Minimalism

TL;DR — Minimalism is a habit. So it needs regular practice.

The Reason

I found minimalism while I was undergoing one of the hardest times of my life. My family had just discovered that Dad had been diagnosed with cancer. And that is when time as a concept hit us hard. Till then time was just the hands of a clock for us. From that point onwards it started running away from us. We all decided it was best to move back to our roots so that Dad could spend time with his family. And that is when it hit us —

Stuff! We had lots and lots of stuff. It was a herculean task. To move thousands of stuff accumulated over 3 decades in 3 days. The panic got the better of us and we ended up selling a lot of things at rates that would only seem a steal. But that is what happens with an unplanned life. You end up in chaos.

We all have that to-do list we aim to complete one day. But keep ignoring that day could be today.

That is when we as a family decided that life has to change. The flashy life that people portray is not what is practical. Most of the things you see online are just a sad portrayal of the struggles people are going through. Hence minimalism was born.

The Birth

The concept is pretty simple. You live with less. And by less, it could mean anything. Lesser stuff, fewer toxic people, fewer addictive habits, and less time spent on nonsense. Basically, anything that doesn’t add value to your life is out the window.

But the struggle is not in starting something. We all have a startup idea we think will make it today. Or the gym that we will join from Monday. The point is consistency. Before starting to follow the principle you need to become passionate about it. And passion comes from following people who are equally passionate about it.

Remember, for anything to grow, it needs a nourishing environment. Not everything is a lotus.

So the first step was to learn about the concept as a whole. From videos to books to snippets. From tidying up sessions to seeing the scale in which people hoard stuff. This scale was necessary to give a sense of where we were headed as a family. It took months to come out of the rat race to buy things, to escape the so-called YOLO concept of investing money to experience things, and to make sense that prettily dressed people are not always interesting either.

Stress is the result of a poorly planned life which is a domino for an unhealthy lifestyle

The Practice

Today, we practice minimalism knowingly or unknowingly to an extent. We think twice before buying anything by adding things to the cart and leaving it there for a day or two. We spend way less time on our phones and instead call someone when needed. We learned that books are more valuable than gossip and invest in reading religiously. And that traveling can also be witnessed through the eyes of someone else by following channels like TinPin.

No matter what you are doing today, there is always a better way to do it

But the journey is far from complete. It’s a way of life. And not everyone will sympathize with you on it. In a society that encourages people to take loans and buy things that add no value to life; To TVs that have become a box of adverts; To newspapers that are a collection of negative masala, everyone is out to brainwash you to become one of them.

We won’t lie. We fail miserably at times by making impulsive purchases. But what has changed is the realization that it was a mistake and we can let it go and rectify our mistakes. It’s the peace that follows that keeps us coming back to minimalism.

The struggle is real. We fought for independence from the British 75 years back and now we are fighting for freedom from Western consumerism culture. The American dream could be to buy stuff, the Indian, is to live peacefully ever after.