Minimalism

 by Louisa McKay

People often misconceive minimalism as living out of a box, removing everything from one's life unless it has a functional use. The pictures circulating of Kim Kardashian's ‘minimalist’ mansion give a warped impression of the whole idea presenting it as living in spacious empty rooms assuming that anything aside from the four walls would ‘clutter the room’. This said, a definition of minimalism is ‘the ability to simplify without losing any quality’, this definition, rightly, suggests that we remove all from our lives that is unnecessary, doesn't add value, doesn't bring joy, and simply clutters an area. If my family is a representation of many other families in this country, which I’m sure it is, I’d be surprised to hear of many families that don’t have at least one, potentially more drawers in their houses full of random stuff which adds no, or at the bare minimum, very little value to anyone's life. This drawer shows what the minimalist movement aims to eradicate, the main aim is to focus on, not having less stuff, but having less stuff that holds little value in one’s life, in order to make space for more time, creativity, passion, and other emotions which cannot be found in materialistic objects.

I would argue that this movement is coming around now due to how our society is changing in terms of our spending habits, technology is at its most advanced point, to the point where phones can track our movement in enough detail to know, which shops we’re going into, which billboards we’re passing and how we’re getting from place to place. With all of this data, they’re accumulating they can target ads in the right place at the right time in order to make people buy more. Equally, credit debt has become normalized, as 38% of surveyed Brits said they have credit card debt, this is because of how the marketing industry presents all items as necessities that must be bought as soon as one sees them, further normalizing the idea of going into debt for a, potentially, worthless purchase. 

Two of the most renowned minimalists are Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus (The Minimalists), who both were brought up without much money, which led their families to, surprisingly, accumulating more stuff they didn't need as they would accept anything from anyone when it was free. Their upbringings meant that both of their ideas of happiness were rooted around money, pushing them both into corporate careers in which they earned enough money to make anyone ‘happy’. As a result of these two factors, they were both led to the realization that happiness isn't found in material objects but in one's person, helping them to transform their lives into living minimalistically.  The idea that bountiful amounts of photos and souvenirs must be kept from holidays is an example of this Westernised belief, stemming from the consumer society we live in nowadays, that memories are only kept if you have an object to remind you of them when it's the memory that you make as a person which are the ones that you will value and remember for the rest of your life.

I’m sure this way of living can seem daunting at first to those who seem to think they value everything in their lives, but if you were to really think about what things, even in just your bedroom, you really need it would come much easier than you’d first have thought. The Minimalists also suggest an idea to first start off the decluttering process, called the ‘30 - Day Minimalism Game’ where on the first day of the month you get rid of one thing, and on the second you get rid of two things, and on the third, three and so on, until the end of the month, as you get rid of these possessions they must be removed from your house, so they could be sold, binned, donated or whatever you think should be done with them, but they cannot be moved around your house into another drawer or a pile of stuff.