Minimalism #1

There’s quite a bit of talk around our house these days about “minimalism.” It began with a message to our whole family from my youngest son, away at college, who said he had just seen a documentary by the same name. We should all check it out. So my wife and I did.

I heard a story on The Minimalists on the radio a few years ago and had actually started to watch the film, but never finished it. It is very thought-provoking, to say the least. We have now added “minimalism” to other terms/values in our life, alongside simplicity, localism, frugality, de-cluttering and anti-consumerism. I find it a pretty good, all-inclusive term to refer to a conscious decision to have less stuff, so that we can free up our time and enjoy life more.  And help the planet along the way.

What provoked me the most in the documentary was the fact that people are generally happier with less–a lot less. I’ve known it in my own life and am a bit ashamed to say that I have drifted away from that. More than once I’ve lost everything–had it stolen or voluntarily gave it away. As a family we lived in an intentional community for seventeen years, fourteen of those pretty much without private property at all. Just about all of what we have in our home has been accumulated in the past 20 years. As simple as I think we are, it’s still too much.

Since the new year began we have been on a mission to “de-clutter” our home a la Marie Kondo and have found it energizing and freeing. Now we want to go further and pursue what it means to be minimalists.

I came across a book recently, The Man Who Quit Money, Daniel Suelo, whose blog can be found here. He lives money-less and house-less and has done so for more than a decade. Debates about his lifestyle aside, he points out that all the major world religions promote the core value that an abundant life is not about abundant possessions.

This is sparking deeper conversations about how we want to live–now, and in the future–and the legacy my wife and I hope to leave behind. When I walked 500 miles across Spain last year on the Camino de Santiago (and am writing a book about it which I hope to self-publish this year) I carried about 16 pounds in a 38 liter pack. I discovered that was about all I needed in life. Ever since returning home, that fact has been on my mind. The most difficult lesson I learned on the Camino was actually from other people, the ones who had too much with them. They knew they needed to get rid of something, but couldn’t figure out what to shed. For me that comes back to this period of life and what we are going through right now. What can we get rid of so that we can walk more freely through life? What is it that we really need?