Modern Minimalist Living A Life Of Happiness On Autopilot
There is no one definition of modern minimalist living. People who call themselves minimalist live a wide range of lifestyles. Some live in small apartments in the city to small homes in suburbia.
Many so-called Digital Nomads are fans of modern minimalist living and travel the world living out of backpacks.
Minimalism is all different and all the same. Modern Minimalists use technology to help achieve their goals. All Minimalists at some point arrived at a similar conclusion.
They had enough of the fast-paced, stress-filled, consumerism path toward the American Dream. Working more, earning more, to spend more was not the way they wanted to continue to live.
They started to realize the pursuit of stuff was the stress-filled obligation of more debt and even more continuing stress. Consumerism and the accumulation of stuff began to get in the way of enjoying life for them.
They then choose LIFE. They choose to enjoy the important things in life. A life of purpose. Happiness. A life of modern minimalist living.
What is Modern Minimalist Living
Modern minimalist living is a lifestyle of intentional purpose and the pursuit of living with less. Intentional as opposed to forced due to circumstances. It is a lifestyle that promotes the value and the removal of everything that moves us away from that.
It promotes the basic intention to pursue the important, time with family, good friends, good health, and creating fabulous experiences.
Minimalists believe that an intentional way of living promotes improvement and more happiness in all aspects of life. When the consumerist way of life is shunned there is more time and money left to spend on truly important things in life.
The modern minimalist living will force you off the treadmill of consumerism and challenge you to fill that time with something of value. To invest in relationships, experiences, good food, and conscious deliberate living.
Modern minimalist living slows life down considerably, to a more manageable, enjoyable pace. A place where clearer thinking rather than impulse reaction is the default. You can take joy in removing the minutia and focus on the significant, essential things in your life.
This better focus brings more happiness and value in life as you shed time and resource-consuming unnecessary actions.
.
“As much as we like our stuff, they really aren’t a part of us,” says Thomas Gilovich, a Cornell University psychology professor.
.
Gilovich, says there are three main reasons why doing something brings about more pleasure than owning something: experiences become part of our identity; they promote social connections with others, and they don’t trigger the kind of jealousy or envy we often get when thinking about someone’s material things.
When enjoying the modern minimalist living lifestyle you learn to value great experiences over material possessions. Physical possessions only bring happiness for a short period of time. We collect and hold on to things hoping to feel that joy again at a later time.
We hold on to possessions believing that will have value in the future or just in case we may need them one day. You will always have the memories, no need to hold on to the things. They just take up time, and space and create more work for you in maintaining them.
Living a modern minimalist living lifestyle you learn you will NEVER need that junk you collect. In the one in a million chance that you do need something, you got rid of just get a newer and better one to fulfill your needs. Declutter, and create more usable space to live a happy life of modern minimalist living.
Say Good-Bye To Duplicates
Modern minimalist living lifestyle frees you from living many multiple and duplicate lives all in the same day. How stressful is that? Many of us have a work persona, a home persona, or a gym persona. Our co-workers know the work persona.
The family knows the home persona. You guessed it, the people at the gym know the gym persona.
This usually happens by accident and there is no deception intended. Living in this fast-paced consumer-driven world you can find yourself being tossed, turned, and bombarded with well-crafted advertising campaigns and the heavy demands of daily life.
If you have not made a conscious, deliberate choice to live an intentional way you may find yourself living multiple persona lifestyles. The modern minimalist living lifestyle helps combat this problem. The decision has already been made.
There is not much thinking in many regards. You are only one persona every time.
When you live with a purpose you know where to go. Hence you live with priority and know what to do when you get there. There is no confusion. No need to subconsciously create multiple personas for every environment. Lifeworks on autopilot.
A perfect example of this default thinking at work is my minimalist Unifrom Wardrobe. I don’t have a closet full of clothes so getting dressed in the morning is fast and virtually decision-free. Many people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs take this trivial decision out of their hands.
Like them, I created a small wardrobe of about 5 tops and 5 bottoms that mix and match well.
I usually buy multiple of the same items in the same colors. This makes shopping easy as there are fewer decisions to make. I know it sounds boring but no one really cares what I wear.
Steve Jobs wore a black turtleneck and jeans every day and no one complained. Right? LOL.
When I look in my closet and dresser draws they are bare. I mix and match what I have and make the decision of what to wear in seconds. The choice was made a long time ago.
I decided it is not important and time-consuming to maintain a large wardrobe so there is never a need for a change in persona there for me. The Modern minimalist living lifestyle can do the same thing for most of your life and make things simple.
Modern Minimalist Living Autopilot
Deciding what is really important in life and avoiding all that detracts from that is half the battle. Spending time and money on unnecessary will never make you happy in the long term.
When important decisions are made long ahead of time navigate through your day feeling like you are on autopilot. You make better decisions to achieve what you seek.
Tune out the marketing you are bombarded with and focus on your desired results. The modern minimalist living lifestyle basic principles give you that template to guide your way.
Hopefully, you can create your own version of the modern minimalist living lifestyle and enjoy a life of happiness on autopilot. Choose happiness.
Very interesting site. I love the idea, less stuff! I really like that idea. Hopefully many people will read your site and realize we really don’t need 2 of everything. Very interesting, thanks, Deanna
Thanks for your comment Deanna. We not only don’t need two of everything, we don’t need one of many things. I hate cleaning, storing and managing a lot of unnecessary stuff. There was a time I wanted to throw it all away every Saturday morning. LOL.
Hey Tony, I totally agree with you. I read about minimalists a few years ago in the newspaper and then I started to wonder: are they really happier? Because they sound happier. At first, I was reluctant but I realised that the things I own overwhelm me and don’t bring me happiness so I started to slowly get rid of the things that I didn’t need to. It’s a process that takes years but it really clears the mind.
However it might be tough, it’s worth to try, especially now when we’re bombarded by informations from every side.
I think you could even say “choose minimalism. Choose happiness”. 😉
Thanks for your comment Adriana. I like “Choose minimalism. Choose happiness” LOL. Sometimes we do and own things and don’t even know why. It can be a force of habit, I don’t know. Getting rid of some of those things also gets rid of the time and cost of maintaining them. I am happy you have had success with Minimalist principles.