Kimberly Wilson - Becoming a Minimalist: Your Guide to Living a Great Life with Less Through Minimalism

BECOMING A MINIMALIST

Your Guide to Living a Great Life with Less Through Minimalism

KIMBERLY WILSON

Copyright 2012 by Empowerment Nation

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Copyright 2012 by Empowerment Nation - All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

We all begin life as minimalists, albeit self-centered ones. Babies are concerned with very, very few necessitiesa reasonable degree of physical comfort, nourishment, and love. Perhaps the allure of minimalism is, at least in part, a desire to return to our originsour true nature and essence. In our lives, we endure years of escalating material exposure. From childhoods trinkets to young adulthoods clothing to the cars and homes that drown our mature years in debt, we move farther and farther away from our true natures.

It is perhaps as a result of this distancing of self that minimalism is a recurring theme all over the globe, in every human effort. In painting and sculpture, minimalism can take the form of geometric abstraction. In literature, it can appear as very spare prose and surface description, leaving the reader to discern the true subject matter. In architecture, minimalists focus on cool lighting and empty spacethe essence or soul of the space. In home dcor, minimalism takes the form of very few simple accents that attract the eye and invite you to consider their basic nature whether it is form or substance.

Do you find the concept of minimalism attractive? Have you outgrown the seduction of consumerisms siren song? If you have, youll find generous rewards, from saving time and money, to protecting our precious planet, to being able to focus on what you value instead of on material goods.

Would you like to go to sleep at night knowing that your day was spent as you truly wanted to spend it? Would you like to feel sure that you didnt waste time and energy on meaningless activity? Would you like to feel that you have done your part to reduce waste and pollution?

Read on to find out how you can make minimalism work for you.

Minimalism has a long tradition in history, art, and religion. Whenever people seek to find trutheither universal or of their individual naturethey strip down to do it.

From Buddhas years of forest fasting to Christs contemplative time in the wilderness to all their followers, people have known that possessions obstruct any quest to identify what is important. We are awash in inspirational stories of austeritySt. Frances, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, the Shakers, the Quakers, and the Amish. But how do modern Americans take this inspiration and make it meaningful in their own lives? Lets look at what minimalism can mean to us.

What Does Minimalism Mean?

What is minimalism? First, its a choice that we are privileged to make. It is not the grinding poverty and lack of possessions that much of the world labors under. It is not, for most of us, living in a cave or in a cabin on Walden Pond, although Thoreaus two years of simple living deeply inspired him:

I went to the woods because

I wished to live deliberately

To front only the essential facts of life.

And see if I could not learn what it had to teach

And not, when I came to die

Discover that I had not lived.

Minimalist living, for most of us in the modern world, is an effort to focus on the essentials. We try to base our work, home, recreation, etc. on what is important and eliminate what is not. In doing so, we can cut through the confusion and frustration of daily lifeexposing the essence of our meanings and existence.

Because it is a personal choice, you can define your form of minimalism in a way that fits your life and priorities. Anyone can make it work. Yes, you can be a location-independent single twenty-something that owns only 100 possessions and be a minimalist. You can also be the kind of minimalist who lives in the suburbs and has kids who play video games. So long as you strive to live a meaningful life, free from nonessentials and confused values, youre on the right track.

How Do I Live a Minimalist Lifestyle?

When people first hear about minimalism, they usually think about living with few possessions; they think about living in simple homes without many worldly goods. And thats part of it. A minimalist lifestyle, however, can extend to all aspects of your life. Its about living free, not only from unnecessary material possessions, but from unnecessary complication and distraction.

A minimalist isnt likely to take a local bus, train, and then light rail to get to his work each morning; hes going to change either his living location or his job to simplify life. As a living philosophy, minimalists constantly seek to streamline and live in elegant simplicity.

The concept of contentedness is very important. A person needs to be able to accept living with less and make the call that certain things are unnecessary in life. The hard-driving Type A personality will tell you that taking three modes of transportation to get to work is necessary to get ahead professionally or pay his mortgage. The minimalist, on the other hand, will tell you that its a completely unnecessary complication and find a way to live contentedly without it.

Like any life, a minimalist life is more of a journey than a destination. Every day presents new complications and new decisions. Youll always be in the process of creating the minimalist life you want.

How Long Does It Take to Become a Minimalist?

The answer to this question depends both on your commitment and how significant a change this shift to minimalism represents to you. If you think of your current acquisitive lifestyle as a bad habit, it helps frame the question of how long changing it will take.