Minimalists Unite
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Some of our RL friends seem to be adopting a minimalist passion. Now some of their stuff are belong to us.1
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JerSchmare wrote: »I have 16 guitars and all the associated things that go with them, like amps, cords, stands, picks, strings, tuners, music, etc. like, it’s crazy. There’s never any talk about getting rid of anything, and only an occasional, “I need another one”.
That’s awesome. Sounds like a passion to me. All the more reason to invest in it.0 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Some of our RL friends seem to be adopting a minimalist passion. Now some of their stuff are belong to us.
Lol, great reference0 -
With the Marie Kondo show that has debuted, I feel like all of my friends who are definitely not minimalists are trying to become minimalists. Far be it from me to say "you're doing it wrong" but I notice a lot of shopping to replace the items they're purging. Kinda funny, I think.
Also I was at a thrift store yesterday and they had a cart of merchandise they were putting out with like sixty pairs of stylish, newer shoes in ladies size 10 and a bunch of scarves and trendy hats. It was clear they were not new stock but also came from one person (same aesthetic). While I confess I was slightly sad that I wear size 7.5 in that situation, all I could think was "hmmm, looks like someone got acquainted with the KonMari method this week!"2 -
If I got my bag and my wife I’m usually pretty content
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seltzermint555 wrote: »With the Marie Kondo show that has debuted, I feel like all of my friends who are definitely not minimalists are trying to become minimalists. Far be it from me to say "you're doing it wrong" but I notice a lot of shopping to replace the items they're purging. Kinda funny, I think.
Also I was at a thrift store yesterday and they had a cart of merchandise they were putting out with like sixty pairs of stylish, newer shoes in ladies size 10 and a bunch of scarves and trendy hats. It was clear they were not new stock but also came from one person (same aesthetic). While I confess I was slightly sad that I wear size 7.5 in that situation, all I could think was "hmmm, looks like someone got acquainted with the KonMari method this week!"
I love it when my size double does a thorough konmari cleanout the day before i go to goodwill!1 -
NewChapterInMyLife wrote: »I am saving my deceased husbands things to give to my daughter who maybe one day will want them. She was a baby when he died so she never got to know him. And the things I saved of his are letters, artwork, songs, stories and poetry he wrote. My moms stuff on the other hand IS mostly just " stuff". I do think I'm almost ready to part ways with most if it. Maybe just keep one box.
My grandma collected hippos. Every year she hosted a Christmas party for the same group of people. After she died, we hosted her group and gave one hippo to each person.0 -
caco_ethes wrote: »What’s it like being a minimalist in a world where stuff is king?
Freeing. Nothing like walking into a mall and thinking "none of this crap appeals to me!" and walking out with either nothing, or only things you actually need (which usually for me is just a refill on my everyday shampoo bar from Lush).What’s your minimalist story?
I was neat and organized from a young age. When I was a kid I would even organize my Barbie dolls when putting them away, like they all had to be seated inside the storage container where I stored them in a very specific order. I had a lot of stuff as a kid, bought for me by family members, but eventually it all got donated as I got older. In my teenage years I didn't have any hobbies that required a lot of stuff such as art, so I basically just had clothes, books, and basic necessities.
My family was dysfunctional and my mom was also minimalist (she grew up with hoarder parents) so we didn't have a lot of stuff that other families had. Like we didn't have a couch for several years, or a TV after they forced everyone to switch to digital. I wasn't allowed to decorate my room at all. I couldn't put anything on the walls so as to not mess up the paint, and I couldn't put anything on surfaces because we had two cats that would knock everything off of surfaces. I never even had real furniture besides a bed (with just a basic metal frame, no headboard) and a dresser (and my mom kept the dresser when I moved out) -- everything else was all plastic shelves and plastic boxes. We also used mostly paper plates and plastic cups for several years, because we never replaced our dishwasher after it broke and my parents didn't want to wash dishes. I always wished we could live like normal families though.
In college I didn't have much by necessity because I couldn't own more than what could fit in the backseat and trunk of a car. The places I lived in were pre-furnished and had a communal bathroom and kitchen. The year after college my now-husband and I lived in a tiny room (about 10'x10') in a shared apartment and so again, I had very little. Besides a bed we had no real furniture, not even a dresser. I kept all my clothes either in the closet or in a big blue plastic storage container. The main thing I owned was clothing because I loved fashion. I got into vintage and thrift shopping in college because those were usually the most interesting finds and my style was very 80s/90s.
Then we moved to our own apartment. My husband had this weird hang-up about buying furniture and would get mad any time I acquired any, even if it was for free or low-cost. Since I wasn't making much money and he didn't want to spend anything on furniture, I had to get things for cheap. Since I wanted them to last and I love the look of vintage furniture, I got mostly vintage stuff made from solid wood. I also inherited many pieces of solid wood furniture from my grandma and got some secondhand from my brother which had originally come from other deceased relatives. However we went without many basic pieces of furniture for a while. We only had a plastic folding table as our dining table for a while, and we didn't have a couch for a year after we moved in (the only reason why we got one is because I inherited it from my grandma).
Also during this time we bought a lot of crap. Our apartment sucked and so I bought a lot of decorative items (some secondhand and some not) to try to make it look nicer, even though it didn't really work. My husband also has a lot of hobbies and bought tons of stuff on a whim for hobbies that he would use for a few weeks and then never again, or never even use at all. He was the child of a hoarder so he never really learned about decluttering or cleaning and had a lot of clutter blindness. Because I loved fashion I would also hold on to clothing just because I liked the way it looked, even if it wasn't comfortable or didn't fit and I rarely ever wore it. Our apartment didn't look cluttered because we had a lot of closet space and drawers but we were definitely to the point of running out of closet space and drawers. I did declutter every few months though.
Over the years I got more into environmentalism and started really getting into minimalism at the end of 2016. When I learned about how synthetic clothing releases microplastics into the environment, I decided to start wearing mostly natural fiber clothes. I gave away most of the things that were synthetic, which was probably 80% of my clothing. I even gave away a lot of clothing that I loved and there are two items in particular I regret giving away.
In spring 2017 we decided to move to a less *kitten* apartment. By coincidence, my MIL had been hospitalized and on a ventilator/oxygen for a long time, and she was recovering and was going to be released around the time our lease was up and could not live independently. So we found a two-bedroom apartment on short notice and moved. We had an overlapping month between the two leases to deal with all our stuff for the move and during that time we realized that we didn't like a lot of this stuff enough to bother moving it again. So instead we moved it to Goodwill. I even gave away almost all our books and switched to e-books and the library. My husband even got rid of some things although he now has an entire closet in our apartment filled with his hobby stuff that he never looks at. But he mostly stopped buying random stuff...maybe the minimalism rubbed off on him. I still had a whole pile of leftover stuff in our new apartment hallway that I was undecided on, and I ended up donating most of it. I gave some stuff to my brother to sell also so he could make some extra money.
Even now the decluttering process isn't even done yet. Whenever I think I'm done, I keep finding more and more stuff to get rid of. There's a pile in our bedroom right now of stuff for donation. We have probably less than half of what we used to have.
I think the real trigger for me to become minimalist was the fact that my MIL is a hoarder and she started imposing her life on us. I started my massive declutter soon after we were forced to take care of her pet bird while she was hospitalized, even though it's loud, messy, and vicious, and we weren't even supposed to have pets in our apartment. She is still a hoarder and her room has stuff everywhere, although she has now started cleaning up a bit after prompting from my husband. She had barely anything when she came here and can't even drive and has managed to hoard things like papers, empty oatmeal and nut containers, stuff from the dollar store, etc. Her room is like a black hole where stuff goes in and never comes out.
Meanwhile for years my husband has been maintaining and cleaning up the abandoned hoarder house she and my FIL left behind. They had so much stuff but all the furniture was cheap and was poorly maintained (stuff piled on it, overstuffed drawers, etc.) so most of it was broken and couldn't even be donated. None of her clothes fit anymore since she lost about 50 pounds in the hospital so he had to wash and donate all of them. A lot of her sentimental items were missing and never found. Everything in the basement was moldy and had to be thrown out. He had to pay junk haulers to take a lot of this stuff away.
They had nothing to show for all the crap they acquired except for a time and money pit. Had they had a few things they valued, they could have kept those things forever. He has wasted hundreds or even thousands of hours on something that would have been completely unnecessary had she managed her stuff. If they had maintained the house, it would have been a great asset, whereas now it's just a white elephant. If they had not wasted so much money on crap, they would have had a lot more money (although she already has a lot of money anyway due to her previous career). I think this had an effect on me, along with seeing other hoarders in my life such as my grandparents, and seeing how many people lost everything in all the natural disasters from 2016-2018. I never want to have more stuff than I can afford to lose, I never want to be tied down by stuff, and I especially never want to waste someone else's time and money with my stuff. If I have to move on short notice, I want to be able to do all of it in two days (one for packing and one for moving).
I actually need to replenish my wardrobe now because I gave so much away (my style and my lifestyle has changed anyway so I wouldn't want most of my old clothing back) but it is difficult now because I am so picky about what I buy! I also buy most clothing secondhand now.Is minimalism going to go out of style or is this a renaissance of sorts that transforms us forever?
I don't know if this particular iteration of it will catch on for good. This is still a relatively small movement and the pressures of consumerism are really strong. I've seen so many Konmari and declutter videos on Youtube (it is a genre that I have watched frequently over the past few years as background noise) followed by a bunch of other videos on the same channel about buying and buying more stuff and filling the space back up again. However, eventually we will have no choice but to all be minimalist, either by conscious decision to ensure a sustainable future, or involuntarily due to socioeconomic collapse. The environmental pressures of our current level of consumption, scientifically speaking, cannot possibly last forever or even through the next few decades.How about that tiny house business? Could you? Would you?
I would live in a tiny house. Not sure if I could due to where I live (northeast New Jersey). I think those are more of a rural thing and might not be legal here, and most of the housing stock is from the 1920s so there aren't really any tiny or unoccupied lots around either. I currently live in a two-bedroom 950 square foot apartment with my husband, MIL, and my MIL's parakeet. By the average American standards that probably qualifies as tiny house living.
If it was allowed by our apartment management I would also convert the living room into a bedroom using one of those expanding door things, move the dining table to our wide hallway, and give away the sofa. My husband and I would move in there and I would have my brother move in to our current bedroom as he is having some financial difficulties currently. We don't do any entertaining at home besides family and instead go out to see our friends so we don't have much need for a living room. Plus it would be less square footage for me to clean every week and rent for each person would be cheaper. Unfortunately though we are only allowed to have a maximum of three adults. I think it's so stupid and unnecessary that every apartment has to have a living room.1 -
laurenq1991 wrote: »caco_ethes wrote: »What’s it like being a minimalist in a world where stuff is king?
Freeing. Nothing like walking into a mall and thinking "none of this crap appeals to me!" and walking out with either nothing, or only things you actually need (which usually for me is just a refill on my everyday shampoo bar from Lush).What’s your minimalist story?
I was neat and organized from a young age. When I was a kid I would even organize my Barbie dolls when putting them away, like they all had to be seated inside the storage container where I stored them in a very specific order. I had a lot of stuff as a kid, bought for me by family members, but eventually it all got donated as I got older. In my teenage years I didn't have any hobbies that required a lot of stuff such as art, so I basically just had clothes, books, and basic necessities.
My family was dysfunctional and my mom was also minimalist (she grew up with hoarder parents) so we didn't have a lot of stuff that other families had. Like we didn't have a couch for several years, or a TV after they forced everyone to switch to digital. I wasn't allowed to decorate my room at all. I couldn't put anything on the walls so as to not mess up the paint, and I couldn't put anything on surfaces because we had two cats that would knock everything off of surfaces. I never even had real furniture besides a bed (with just a basic metal frame, no headboard) and a dresser (and my mom kept the dresser when I moved out) -- everything else was all plastic shelves and plastic boxes. We also used mostly paper plates and plastic cups for several years, because we never replaced our dishwasher after it broke and my parents didn't want to wash dishes. I always wished we could live like normal families though.
In college I didn't have much by necessity because I couldn't own more than what could fit in the backseat and trunk of a car. The places I lived in were pre-furnished and had a communal bathroom and kitchen. The year after college my now-husband and I lived in a tiny room (about 10'x10') in a shared apartment and so again, I had very little. Besides a bed we had no real furniture, not even a dresser. I kept all my clothes either in the closet or in a big blue plastic storage container. The main thing I owned was clothing because I loved fashion. I got into vintage and thrift shopping in college because those were usually the most interesting finds and my style was very 80s/90s.
Then we moved to our own apartment. My husband had this weird hang-up about buying furniture and would get mad any time I acquired any, even if it was for free or low-cost. Since I wasn't making much money and he didn't want to spend anything on furniture, I had to get things for cheap. Since I wanted them to last and I love the look of vintage furniture, I got mostly vintage stuff made from solid wood. I also inherited many pieces of solid wood furniture from my grandma and got some secondhand from my brother which had originally come from other deceased relatives. However we went without many basic pieces of furniture for a while. We only had a plastic folding table as our dining table for a while, and we didn't have a couch for a year after we moved in (the only reason why we got one is because I inherited it from my grandma).
Also during this time we bought a lot of crap. Our apartment sucked and so I bought a lot of decorative items (some secondhand and some not) to try to make it look nicer, even though it didn't really work. My husband also has a lot of hobbies and bought tons of stuff on a whim for hobbies that he would use for a few weeks and then never again, or never even use at all. He was the child of a hoarder so he never really learned about decluttering or cleaning and had a lot of clutter blindness. Because I loved fashion I would also hold on to clothing just because I liked the way it looked, even if it wasn't comfortable or didn't fit and I rarely ever wore it. Our apartment didn't look cluttered because we had a lot of closet space and drawers but we were definitely to the point of running out of closet space and drawers. I did declutter every few months though.
Over the years I got more into environmentalism and started really getting into minimalism at the end of 2016. When I learned about how synthetic clothing releases microplastics into the environment, I decided to start wearing mostly natural fiber clothes. I gave away most of the things that were synthetic, which was probably 80% of my clothing. I even gave away a lot of clothing that I loved and there are two items in particular I regret giving away.
In spring 2017 we decided to move to a less *kitten* apartment. By coincidence, my MIL had been hospitalized and on a ventilator/oxygen for a long time, and she was recovering and was going to be released around the time our lease was up and could not live independently. So we found a two-bedroom apartment on short notice and moved. We had an overlapping month between the two leases to deal with all our stuff for the move and during that time we realized that we didn't like a lot of this stuff enough to bother moving it again. So instead we moved it to Goodwill. I even gave away almost all our books and switched to e-books and the library. My husband even got rid of some things although he now has an entire closet in our apartment filled with his hobby stuff that he never looks at. But he mostly stopped buying random stuff...maybe the minimalism rubbed off on him. I still had a whole pile of leftover stuff in our new apartment hallway that I was undecided on, and I ended up donating most of it. I gave some stuff to my brother to sell also so he could make some extra money.
Even now the decluttering process isn't even done yet. Whenever I think I'm done, I keep finding more and more stuff to get rid of. There's a pile in our bedroom right now of stuff for donation. We have probably less than half of what we used to have.
I think the real trigger for me to become minimalist was the fact that my MIL is a hoarder and she started imposing her life on us. I started my massive declutter soon after we were forced to take care of her pet bird while she was hospitalized, even though it's loud, messy, and vicious, and we weren't even supposed to have pets in our apartment. She is still a hoarder and her room has stuff everywhere, although she has now started cleaning up a bit after prompting from my husband. She had barely anything when she came here and can't even drive and has managed to hoard things like papers, empty oatmeal and nut containers, stuff from the dollar store, etc. Her room is like a black hole where stuff goes in and never comes out.
Meanwhile for years my husband has been maintaining and cleaning up the abandoned hoarder house she and my FIL left behind. They had so much stuff but all the furniture was cheap and was poorly maintained (stuff piled on it, overstuffed drawers, etc.) so most of it was broken and couldn't even be donated. None of her clothes fit anymore since she lost about 50 pounds in the hospital so he had to wash and donate all of them. A lot of her sentimental items were missing and never found. Everything in the basement was moldy and had to be thrown out. He had to pay junk haulers to take a lot of this stuff away.
They had nothing to show for all the crap they acquired except for a time and money pit. Had they had a few things they valued, they could have kept those things forever. He has wasted hundreds or even thousands of hours on something that would have been completely unnecessary had she managed her stuff. If they had maintained the house, it would have been a great asset, whereas now it's just a white elephant. If they had not wasted so much money on crap, they would have had a lot more money (although she already has a lot of money anyway due to her previous career). I think this had an effect on me, along with seeing other hoarders in my life such as my grandparents, and seeing how many people lost everything in all the natural disasters from 2016-2018. I never want to have more stuff than I can afford to lose, I never want to be tied down by stuff, and I especially never want to waste someone else's time and money with my stuff. If I have to move on short notice, I want to be able to do all of it in two days (one for packing and one for moving).
I actually need to replenish my wardrobe now because I gave so much away (my style and my lifestyle has changed anyway so I wouldn't want most of my old clothing back) but it is difficult now because I am so picky about what I buy! I also buy most clothing secondhand now.Is minimalism going to go out of style or is this a renaissance of sorts that transforms us forever?
I don't know if this particular iteration of it will catch on for good. This is still a relatively small movement and the pressures of consumerism are really strong. I've seen so many Konmari and declutter videos on Youtube (it is a genre that I have watched frequently over the past few years as background noise) followed by a bunch of other videos on the same channel about buying and buying more stuff and filling the space back up again. However, eventually we will have no choice but to all be minimalist, either by conscious decision to ensure a sustainable future, or involuntarily due to socioeconomic collapse. The environmental pressures of our current level of consumption, scientifically speaking, cannot possibly last forever or even through the next few decades.How about that tiny house business? Could you? Would you?
I would live in a tiny house. Not sure if I could due to where I live (northeast New Jersey). I think those are more of a rural thing and might not be legal here, and most of the housing stock is from the 1920s so there aren't really any tiny or unoccupied lots around either. I currently live in a two-bedroom 950 square foot apartment with my husband, MIL, and my MIL's parakeet. By the average American standards that probably qualifies as tiny house living.
If it was allowed by our apartment management I would also convert the living room into a bedroom using one of those expanding door things, move the dining table to our wide hallway, and give away the sofa. My husband and I would move in there and I would have my brother move in to our current bedroom as he is having some financial difficulties currently. We don't do any entertaining at home besides family and instead go out to see our friends so we don't have much need for a living room. Plus it would be less square footage for me to clean every week and rent for each person would be cheaper. Unfortunately though we are only allowed to have a maximum of three adults. I think it's so stupid and unnecessary that every apartment has to have a living room.
Wow! This is truely incredible... I didn’t read your story or anything but the fact that you could write a novel on the subject amazes me...
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thepainmaker88 wrote: »Wow! This is truely incredible... I didn’t read your story or anything but the fact that you could write a novel on the subject amazes me...
Some people are just verbose and minimalism is a basic philosophy of how I live. That isn't even all I have to say on the subject LOL.
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tinkerhellraiser wrote: »@caco_ethes how u feel about digital clutter?
i never really hear anything about that from my friends that are starry-eyed for minimalism rn
i don’t mean hardware I mean the amount of your brain devoted to digital media and even digital interaction/presence, the amount files and emails and pictures u save and how or if there is a purpose to it
like if the point of minimalism is have more actual experiences and be mindful i feel that would come into it too
For me it’s hard to know where minimalism ends and OCD begins. I suppose it lies in the amount and kind of energy i devote to clearing those things out? I am a clean-desktop-zero-inbox-serial-deleter kind of digital minimalist. I get overwhelmed if i have more than 21 emails in my inbox, for example.
Online presence as in social media? I find that I can’t keep up with more than one or two. If I’m more active here, i tend to be less active on ig. I’m all but completely awol on Facebook. I have no other social media. Did I understand your question?
If i spend too much time on social media, i feel myself pulling away. It’s not an intentional thing though. It’s more a subconscious self-protection measure that I realize I’m doing after the fact. Too much can be very overwhelming. Or exhausting in a way. It’s not uncommon for me to ignore messages for days on end because i just can’t find it in me to open them.
What are your thoughts on verbose answers to your minimalism questions? 😏
Edit: i feel like I completely missed your point. Yes i think minimalism extends to digital space, definitely3 -
FeelinFooFoo wrote: »I guess I'm fairly minimalist in that I do regular clear outs. Too much stuff makes me feel itchy and unorganized.
Even sentimental stuff has an expiry date, I will hold onto things for so long, they may survive a few clear outs but eventually they go. You see the thing is, in life, you constantly gather sentimental stuff and I only have a few items (bar photographs, they have no expiry date) that I will not dump.
To give an example of my 'clear outs' and desire not to hold onto 'stuff' not even my parents ash urns were safe. I mean, who wants to hold onto the container of their dead parents? I don't want to remember them that way, that they were reduced to a cardboard tube. So my plan is, me and my bro are gona each write a letter for our parents, put them inside the empty tubes (we already spread the ashes) I couldn't deal with holding onto the ashes. And then release the tubes into a nice body of water. I'm hoping it's all special and I'm not left with feeling like I'm just doing a part of one of my clear outs. (Another part of my ocd way of thinking, I would rather deal with it this way, than say, something happens to me and then their ashes are just floating around. Someone might not treat them with dignity so and breath. .... ..... Sorry got carried away but yeah, I like having only what is necessary and not bogged down with 'stuff'.
I like your point of view, especially about sentimental stuff. Sad for you that you lost your parents so early, you make an excellent point about holding on to a container of someone who has passed and I like the idea you have for you and your brother.
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"Stuff" stresses me out a bit. You have to take care of it (clean, dust, protect) etc. I recently moved and got rid of a lot more "stuff", almost all of my "decorations or knick knacks" and it is freeing (to me).
I like the feeling that if I want to move again (say tomorrow!) I can pack up almost all my stuff in probably one day at this point. Again, to me it's freeing.
I struggle with clothes and shoes and for some dumb reason old handbags. I have clothes I haven't worn in 10 years, they still fit and I still like them, soo ya. I did manage to fit (almost) all my shoes onto a rack that fits nicely into a closet, so that's something.
Also have more skin care and make up samples then I care to admit.
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tinkerhellraiser wrote: »caco_ethes wrote: »tinkerhellraiser wrote: »@caco_ethes how u feel about digital clutter?
i never really hear anything about that from my friends that are starry-eyed for minimalism rn
i don’t mean hardware I mean the amount of your brain devoted to digital media and even digital interaction/presence, the amount files and emails and pictures u save and how or if there is a purpose to it
like if the point of minimalism is have more actual experiences and be mindful i feel that would come into it too
For me it’s hard to know where minimalism ends and OCD begins. I suppose it lies in the amount and kind of energy i devote to clearing those things out? I am a clean-desktop-zero-inbox-serial-deleter kind of digital minimalist. I get overwhelmed if i have more than 21 emails in my inbox, for example.
Online presence as in social media? I find that I can’t keep up with more than one or two. If I’m more active here, i tend to be less active on ig. I’m all but completely awol on Facebook. I have no other social media. Did I understand your question?
If i spend too much time on social media, i feel myself pulling away. It’s not an intentional thing though. It’s more a subconscious self-protection measure that I realize I’m doing after the fact. Too much can be very overwhelming. Or exhausting in a way. It’s not uncommon for me to ignore messages for days on end because i just can’t find it in me to open them.
What are your thoughts on verbose answers to your minimalism questions? 😏
Edit: i feel like I completely missed your point. Yes i think minimalism extends to digital space, definitely
no it was a good answer
it’s this push/pull for me because i like to outright own and not trust streaming services bc what if they go out of business and then i lose access to things like music and other media
and pictures, i have sooooo many pics
and then there’s a running joke i keep hearing about the minimalism trend on like “let’s just delete all this code, it really brings me no joy”
I didn’t trust online storage so i backed up all my digital photos to a hard drive that I stupidly kept in my house so those were all lost in the fire. That left me with the pics i had uploaded to Facebook and that’s the single reason I’ll never deactivate. All the baby pics i have of my kids are there. So I’m forever worried it’ll go the way of myspace and I’ll lose them all.
For me with digital and/or mental clutter, it’s not the minimalism concept or aesthetic that drives me. I NEED it or my anxiety goes into overdrive 😬3 -
tinkerhellraiser wrote: »@caco_ethes how u feel about digital clutter?
i never really hear anything about that from my friends that are starry-eyed for minimalism rn
i don’t mean hardware I mean the amount of your brain devoted to digital media and even digital interaction/presence, the amount files and emails and pictures u save and how or if there is a purpose to it
like if the point of minimalism is have more actual experiences and be mindful i feel that would come into it too
This is a great question
I consider myself a minimalist, but holly cow man, If Cakey saw my email (4 accounts) she'd have a panic attack.
I just mass delete, (~every 6 months).
I have so many pictures on my phone, that I never look at. Pictures live in my memory.
Another thing besides the clothes and shoes I haven't gotten rid of are photos, not digital but printed photos....that I never look at.
I never thought about minimalism being about having actual experiences and being mindful. To me it's mostly about not having to take care of "stuff" that takes time away from my life, "stuff" that I almost resent.2 -
"Stuff" stresses me out a bit. You have to take care of it (clean, dust, protect) etc. I recently moved and got rid of a lot more "stuff", almost all of my "decorations or knick knacks" and it is freeing (to me).
I like the feeling that if I want to move again (say tomorrow!) I can pack up almost all my stuff in probably one day at this point. Again, to me it's freeing.
I struggle with clothes and shoes and for some dumb reason old handbags. I have clothes I haven't worn in 10 years, they still fit and I still like them, soo ya. I did manage to fit (almost) all my shoes onto a rack that fits nicely into a closet, so that's something.
Also have more skin care and make up samples then I care to admit.
I’ve labeled myself as a minimalist since 2012 when i came across the first website devoted to minimalism and i was like WHOA thats what i am! For me it was always the way i was and not a concept i was trying to adhere to. So i see people who get into it with the idea that it’ll relieve all their stress and solve all their problems and they’ll finally feel something they think they’re missing out on. On the contrary these people tend to get too into the process and don’t know what to do with themselves when they’re done and realize it was the act of decluttering that felt satisfying but having nothing doesn’t feel good at all.
Or people go into it thinking it’s something they ‘should’ do. They see their friends doing it or they see a YouTube video about a 30 day declutter challenge and they try to motivate themselves to do it.
My point is.. it always pains me when people say “my struggle is..” because i feel like those people feel pressure to conform to some vague minimalist ideal rather than being guided by what makes them feel good about things. Girl, love you some clothes and shoes and handbags. That doesn’t make you any less a minimalist. Being minimalist isn’t even about what you own or don’t own imo. Maybe like 40%. The rest is your motivation behind it. You are 100% a minimalist, I’ve got no doubt about that.
I go in phases. Sometimes buying new clothes and shoes is a stressor, sometimes it’s super fun. I have more clothes now than i have in years and it feels nice.
Another long post, smh2 -
One thing I’ve found as a self-proclaimed minimalist is that people seem to feel uncomfortable when i see their house or their things, like they’ll apologize that they aren’t more minimalist. I wish people didn’t feel that way because of me. I couldn’t care less what people keep or throw. I do my thing for my own reasons, i assume everyone else is doing the same2
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caco_ethes wrote: »"Stuff" stresses me out a bit. You have to take care of it (clean, dust, protect) etc. I recently moved and got rid of a lot more "stuff", almost all of my "decorations or knick knacks" and it is freeing (to me).
I like the feeling that if I want to move again (say tomorrow!) I can pack up almost all my stuff in probably one day at this point. Again, to me it's freeing.
I struggle with clothes and shoes and for some dumb reason old handbags. I have clothes I haven't worn in 10 years, they still fit and I still like them, soo ya. I did manage to fit (almost) all my shoes onto a rack that fits nicely into a closet, so that's something.
Also have more skin care and make up samples then I care to admit.
I’ve labeled myself as a minimalist since 2012 when i came across the first website devoted to minimalism and i was like WHOA thats what i am! For me it was always the way i was and not a concept i was trying to adhere to. So i see people who get into it with the idea that it’ll relieve all their stress and solve all their problems and they’ll finally feel something they think they’re missing out on. On the contrary these people tend to get too into the process and don’t know what to do with themselves when they’re done and realize it was the act of decluttering that felt satisfying but having nothing doesn’t feel good at all.
Or people go into it thinking it’s something they ‘should’ do. They see their friends doing it or they see a YouTube video about a 30 day declutter challenge and they try to motivate themselves to do it.
My point is.. it always pains me when people say “my struggle is..” because i feel like those people feel pressure to conform to some vague minimalist ideal rather than being guided by what makes them feel good about things. Girl, love you some clothes and shoes and handbags. That doesn’t make you any less a minimalist. Being minimalist isn’t even about what you own or don’t own imo. Maybe like 40%. The rest is your motivation behind it. You are 100% a minimalist, I’ve got no doubt about that.
I go in phases. Sometimes buying new clothes and shoes is a stressor, sometimes it’s super fun. I have more clothes now than i have in years and it feels nice.
Another long post, smh
I getcha, and good point.
For me I don't follow any pop culture ideals, "stuff" literally stresses me out...taking care of it and being responsible for it. I feel much happier now that I've rid myself of a bunch of "stuff"
It doesn't bring me joy having handbags that I'll never use again because I'll want something new, and it bothers me that I cant give it away and someone else can have them and maybe enjoy. I feel like I'm 'hoarding' something that could be better used2 -
caco_ethes wrote: »One thing I’ve found as a self-proclaimed minimalist is that people seem to feel uncomfortable when i see their house or their things, like they’ll apologize that they aren’t more minimalist. I wish people didn’t feel that way because of me. I couldn’t care less what people keep or throw. I do my thing for my own reasons, i assume everyone else is doing the same
100%!!
I'm a bit of a clean freak too, I've had friends come over and say "can I walk on your floor"!1 -
@caco_ethes
So... what is a reasonable number of shoes for a fella to own ?
( I'm including dress shoes, trainers, casual kicks etc. )
I just had this same conversation this weekend with some family members.
For the record, I thought their replies and estimations were ridiculously low.
2
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