Minimalist Living is Just a Tool, Use It Well For Happy Living

This is a critical article on Minimalism, from a Minimalist – keep that in mind as you read on. Often the minimalist lifestyle is criticized by individuals who are not minimalists because it’s different from their lifestyle.

Remember what I wrote about how people hate being told that they are wrong? Well,  if an idea is promoting something different from someone’s current lifestyle, it is essentially telling them that they are wrong.

Minimalism is a challenge to all non-minimalists to take a long hard look at how they live their lives. I think that somewhere along the line, minimalism became a little too hip, too cool, and it essentially became lifestyle porn.

.What I have found interesting is that it appears that the vast majority of people promoting minimalism as a hardcore way of life tend to be young, male, white, and single (unlike myself).

Well, I think it’s probably relatively easy to be minimalist when you’re 20-something – I mostly find it a walk in the park. Is over-consumption wrong? Of course, it is, we all know that.

Nobody is stupid, but it’s not easy to buck the trend when social pressures come from every conceivable angle.

There is also a tendency for minimalists to preach about minimalism. Throw a child or two in the mix, a spouse and mortgage payments, and a demanding job and I wonder if we might consider changing our minds.

It’s easy to ridicule our parents with their multiple sets of crockery and three-piece sofa suites, but they probably lived with far less in their 20s than we do in ours.

The Internet is full of websites dedicated to minimalism, but I find it slightly ironic that something so simple as minimalism has numerous websites utterly dedicated to living with less.

Can it be such a complex issue that it requires thousands of articles to comprehend? Most probably not, but I do enjoy reading them.

I find it humorous that Apple products always seem to come up when discussing minimalism. We get shown “minimalist” flats with wooden or white floors and expensive minimalist furniture, with an iMac or MacBook Air thrown in for a good cause.

That’s hardly minimalist – a MacBook Air requires huge manufacturing facilities, R&D, and marketing. Yes, I am writing this from a MacBook Air, but I don’t claim that minimalism is the answer to everything.

Real minimalist life is probably quite boring and is closer to living on a farm in the countryside than anything else.

Minimalism does work.

I think a large part of why many people advocate minimalism is because it works. There are numerous benefits to learning to live with less but more to do with the fact that we live in a society that encourages us to worship material objects.

Advertising serves not so much to advertise products but to promote consumption as a way of life.

I’m currently living in Cambodia, and plenty of people here live with less and not by choice. Are they better or worse off? Yes and no, but mostly no.

I think the problem with minimalism is that it sees the world in black and white. Owning a lot of stuff is bad, owning less is good.  I’m going to disagree with this one.

How We Should Use Minimalism

Contrary to popular minimalist opinion, you can be free, productive, and happy while owning thousands of things.

It’s just how you go about it.

If you deeply care about the things you own more than how you act then minimalism will not save you.

Remember –  this comes from the guy who only owns 51 items, including a toothbrush.

Owning less stuff may make things worse. If you only have 50 items instead of 500, you are likely to become more attached to every item. If you can make the mental switch and let go, it doesn’t matter how much you own, but if you are not yet able to do that, then being minimalist may make things worse.

Yes, from a practical perspective, it is easier to have less stuff but that is not a life-changer, it just happens to be a little more convenient.

So I urge you, minimalist, or not, to think of minimalist living as a simple tool that serves its purpose. Just like a toothbrush is there to clean your teeth, minimalist living is there to keep consumption in check if it brings some of the numerous benefits that it often brings, even better.

If not, don’t worry about it.