Minimal Simple

as a part of my job, i frequently take adults and students to third-world environments.  and i have taken enough trips over the years i can predict what the emotional response is going to be in the life of somebody who has never seen life outside of the established, consumer-driven, american culture where i live.

they will have three emotions at some point during the trip:

they will marvel that people with so little can be so joyful.
they will long to enjoy life as much as the people they meet.
they will say that they are blessed to live in america and own so many possessions.
the reflective ones will connect the dots and realize the foolishness of their third statement as soon as they say it out loud.  others will repeat the same three emotions over and over again.

the truth is that “possessions” and “joy” are not equal.  this can be seen in the statistics (america ranks #1 in rate of depression) and this can be seen in the people we meet in the third-world countries (which leads to the emotion #1 and #2).

the unfortunate truth is that for so long americans have equated possessions with joy in life that even when the evidence is right in front of their face, we are blind to recognize it.  minimalism begins to conteract that belief structure.  we begin to live with less and find that joy does not leave our lives.

it may even feed it.

assume for a moment that you have one of those mothers that does all the work around the house for you because she wants everything to be perfect for her family.  every morning when you wake up she goes in and completely cleans your entire room top to bottom.  and every time you go to bed, she comes in and puts everything away for you – just so that everything is perfect.

if that was the case, how would you show the most respect and honor to your mother?  would you best bring her honor by pulling out every toy and making as large a mess as possible for her to clean?  or would you bring her honor by keeping things clean, by putting your own toys away, and keeping the room as close to perfection as possible?  the second one of course.  you’d bring honor to her by sustaining the perfection that she desires for you as much as possible.

i believe that God created this earth perfect and will return to restore it to its original beauty.  in the meantime, God has placed humanity over the earth to rule over it.  and just like the child in the story above, we bring God the most honor and glory when we rule over the earth in a manner that sustains His original and ultimate plan as much as possible.

the less we consume, the less damage we do to the environment.  and that benefits everybody!

i can’t take much credit for thinking of this benefit on my own – i originally found it in a zenhabits blog post titled, “a guide to creating a minimalist home.”  by the way, their thoughts on minimalization are amazing!  however, i have noticed that many people are ending up at this blog after searching for “minimalism benefits” so i wanted to be sure that it got on the list because i have found it to be so true!

a minimalist home is less stressful.  clutter is a form of visual distraction, and everything in our vision pulls at our attention at least a little. the less clutter, the less visual stress we have. a minimalist home is calming.

i have found this to be true and you will too with a simple experiment.  go compare two counter tops – one that is clear (minimal) and one that is cluttered.  look at each of them separately.  what is your internal emotional response?  does the clear one bring about a calming effect?  does the cluttered one bring emotions of distraction or anxiety?

a minimalist home is less stressful.  i have found that to be so true as we continue to become minimalist.

over the past three weeks since we began this journey, i have noticed a change in my lifestyle.  karen kingston helped me understand it.

in her book, clear your clutter with feng shui, karen writes this about clutter – “you know what it is like.  you are walking down the street and you see that someone has thoughtlessly thrown an empty cigarette packet in the corner near the roadside.  the next day you walk past the same spot, and the empty pack has been joined by a few more items of trash.  before long it becomes a full-blown garbage dump.  clutter accumulates the same way in your house.  it starts with a bit and then it slowly, insidously, grows and grows.”

clutter attracts clutter.  it just takes one piece of junk mail, one article of clothing left on a chair, or one receipt not filed properly to get the clutter momentum started.

what i have found over the last three weeks is that the opposite is also true.  when a surface is left clean, that one piece of clutter seems out of place and calls you to put it away.  since i minimalized my office and removed all the clutter, i can’t stand the idea of leaving one piece of paper sitting on my desk – and so i put it away.  since i minimalized my wardrobe, i can’t stand the idea of leaving one shirt laying on the floor – and so i throw it down to the laundry.   since we minimalized the living room, i can’t stand the idea of leaving my shoes in the corner or a book on the table - and so i put them where they go right away.

perhaps, i should have learned to just put things away years ago when i turned 20, 25, or 30.  but for me another benefit of minimalism is that it leads to even more minimalism.  and that’s a good change in my lifestyle – just ask my wife.

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.

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?

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.