benefit #6 – not tied to the past

as i mentioned, this past week i minimalized my office.  in doing so, i made a deliberate decision to throw out anything related to my previous place of employment 8 years ago.  it occurred to me that the youth culture has changed so much over the past 8 years that even the things that were effective 8 years ago are just not effective today.  and so i got rid of it.  and in doing so, i discovered another benefit of minimalism: freedom from being tied to the past.

clutter keeps you tied to the past.  your thoughts tend to dwell in the past as the things around you force your mind to reminisce.  your solutions tend to be rooted in the past as the things around you conjure up the same thought-processes.  your mind is tied to the past because there is no available space for anything new in your life.  minimalizing your workspace (and life) forces you to recognize the problems of today and solve them with solutions for tomorrow.  some might say - you have to release the past to create a better tomorrow.

benefit #5 – freedom

as i have mentioned previously, i minimalized my office yesterday.  it was a day filled with different emotions.  it began with excitement (this is going to be great!).  then with the mess of books and papers strewn all over my floor (picture cleaning out an old closet) came feelings of overwhelment (how am i ever going to finish?).  following that came a sense of progress as things began to leave my office and go back into drawers.  then came fatigue/frustration (i had put most things back and was staring at a stack of stuff that i wasn’t sure where to put).  after pushing through that emotion (“the wall” i called it), came the next emotion and my fifth benefit…

a sense of freedom.  as i put the last few items in their new found home, i kept commenting out loud, “this feels so good.  today has been a great day.”  a feeling of freedom was coming over me as i kept looking around at my new office.  no longer would my work environment feature three bookcases of books that i “should have read.”  no longer will my desktop be cluttered with stacks of paper that “should be filed properly.”  no longer am i strangled by clutter as i sit in my office trying to work.  heck, i may even be free to get out of the office for a little while.

the freedom of minimalism is good.  and it’s more than a feeling/emotion, it’s a reality that can now define my life.  because the less stuff you own, the less your stuff owns you!  when was the last time you went through your work environment and removed everything that you don’t really need?

benefit #4 – easier to clean

this evening, i decided to minimalize our living room.  more on that in a separate post.  during the minimalizing, i stumbled upon benefit #4.

as i was removing decorative items from shelves, i was suprised at the amount of dust that i found on the shelves (particularly the top shelves).  clearly, the vast number of knick-knacks on the shelving made the proposition of dusting a daunting task.  the less things in my living room, the easier it is to clean.  that’s another reason why i’m becoming minimalist.

benefit #3 – finding an umbrella

i judge track and field at the local high school here in vermont.  this morning is the biggest meet of the year and i woke up to a steady rain.  because track and field doesn’t stop for the rain, i thought it would be a good idea to bring an umbrella.  that was until i started rummaging through our basement closet trying to find it…

now granted - the closet is a mess right now because it has not been refitted for the spring.  it is a big hodge-podge mix of winter clothes for four and spring clothes for four (snow boots, rain boots, gloves, scarves, snow pants, rain coats, etc.) all in one small closet.  needless to say, finding an umbrella was easier said than done.  at the end of the search all i could find was a blue umbrella with a big logo of a woman on it.  so unfortunately, i am off to judge the largest track and field meet of the year with a girl’s umbrella.  hopefully, becoming minimalist will come quickly…

benefit #2 – the example for my kids

another benefit of choosing to live a minimalist lifestlye is that it sets a fantastic example for my children. 

my kids are 5 and 2 right now and soaking up so much from my wife and i about how we live and what we value.  becoming minimalist shows my kids that we do not need personal belongings to be happy, that our security is not found in the things that we own, and that the pursuit of happiness runs a different road that the pursuit of possessions.  those are life lessons that they will never learn at school.  and unfortunately, will not learn from us until we successfully navigate this transition.

benefit #1 – simple dollars and sense

it seems important to remind myself the benefits of becoming minimalist.  living minimalist is contrary to every advertisement that has ever been created and because we live in a country that prides itself on the accumulation of possessions, it can be a difficult proposition to become minimalist.

for that reason, an important running thread needs to be the benefits of minimalism.

benefit #1 – simple dollars and sense.  the bible says, “the foolish person spends all he has”  (proverbs 21:20).  yet, for some reason, whether my income is $30,000 or $60,000 i seem to spend every penny.  the change of lifestyle is so subtle, i end up spending my entire income no matter what it is.  i’m left wishing for a bigger paycheck over and over again.  only a fool spends everything he has.  it seems to me that the true secret to living on an income is just to spend less. 

one benefit of becoming minimalist is the simple reality that it costs less.  if you are accumulating less things, you are spending less money.  and if you are spending less money, you are experiencing countless other benefits as well (less stress, money for other experiences, etc).