Skip to main content

Minimalism - Is it worth it?

"Things you own end up owning you" - Fight Club
__________________________________________

Minimalism - A buzzword which one hears often, seldom understands and rarely follow. But many people (including me) have it as a part of their wishful thinking.

Different people have different interpretation of minimalism. For some it is about things, for some it is about the things they own (or not own) For some this includes non-things too (for instance, number of people one interacts with in day to day life). For others it may be about prioritizing experiences over things. For some it may be about partially automating a part of their lives.

The above interpretations may not be mutually exclusive. Nor they need be one of them or just one of them - there are many more interpretations & combinations of interpretations possible. But one underlying thing is the need to de-clutter. More so, if one tends not to be too attached to things.

How can minimalism be helpful? Here is my take in few bullet points!


  • Less clutter at home. Easier to find things. More space.
  • More the things you have, more the things you need to maintain. This may not be good for your money or energy. 
  • Less expenses, especially in maintenance & storage costs.You may need an almirah less to store your stuff. More so, if you have stuff that you haven't used for ages and unlikely to do so in future. 
  • More the things you don't need, more the things you won't buy. For example, if you decide not to wear a watch, you won't feel the need to buy a watch.
  • More space - physically & mentally to do the things you love. 
  • Health benefits, since you may spend less time fretting about unnecessary things & focus more on things that matter.
  • Less need for external validation by showing off things. 
  • Virtuous cycle of not feeling the need to compare yourself with others, benchmarked by things you own.
  • Being content with less stuff may eventually come naturally to you. And isn't contentment a great state of mind to aspire for?

Despite seemingly several benefits, minimalism is often difficult to follow because we usually  love accumulating things - partly due to love of things, partly due to love of showing off things and partly due to - well, it has always been this way.

What do you think? 


(Disclaimer - Despite my affinity for minimalism, I am still struggling to follow it & hopefully, should be able to traverse a part of this journey over next decade!)

___

You can also check this out on BeingFinwise

Comments

Shop @ Amazon

Popular posts from this blog

The story behind credit card debts & personal loans

Any one with even an iota of interest in personal finance & its workings would probably know that credit card debts and personal loans are usually the worst kinds of debt traps that you can fall into. Yet many people fall into that trap again and again. Many people do come out of it eventually but some don't & this becomes a part of their "lifestyle". That you are eventually paying much more than you need to, if you default on credit card payments intentionally or unintentionally (probably @ 36 % per annum or something similar) or take a personal loan (say, @ 12% per annum or so) is not hard to fathom. However behind these numbers, there may be even a deeper story - that usually that of not having control over expenses or not having created a buffer amount. While there may be some pressing need like unplanned or recurring medical expenses which fuels sudden demand of money or an unexpected job loss, in many other cases this need may be fueled by lack of plani...

Somewhere @ Nowhere - The Book

FINALLY .... After a tryst with so-called-creativity, I have come up with a book -  Somewhere @ Nowhere. You can have a sneak peek at the story & a few pages from the publisher's website and order the same & get it home delivered anywhere in India/ Abroad. Details as mentioned below- - Preview and get the book home delivered from HERE Also, you can join the following groups - - Orkut Community - Facebook Page Hope you like the work. Would appreciate a feedback. Till then ... Happy Reading!!! And yeah, please spread the word (relying on word of mouth & word of blog publicity) :-) ___ Update (18/02/2010) - Thanks for the initial response to the book :) Update2 (25/ 02/ 2010) - Thanks for the feedbacks on the book those who have read it. (hope to get a feedback by others soon). Encourages me to overcome inertia and write more! Meanwhile, those who ask for why is it currently not available in traditional retail outlets - well, I hope it wil...

An area of darkness ?

The title of this post finds its origins in a novel with simlar name written by VS Naipaul. Set in India, some 40 years ago or so, this is a kind of travelogue of author's brief stay in India where he found it to be full of superstitions, ignorance and darkness! Many decades and many MNCs and malls later, few parts of India seemed to have chucked off that tag, but there are many places that haven't and continue to remain shrouded in ignorance. Move few hours away from a city, travel in a second class train compartment or a dilapidated state transport bus and you get to see the dark underbelly of India Shining. As one of the characters in the movie Rang De Basanti says "Yahan zinda rehne ki jung mein logo ki zindagiyan nikal jaati hai" . So true it seems! My day today was spent being kind of lost in similar thoughts. To start with, I when I boarded the ST bus, a woman was wailing. She may be in her 20s or something, but she was crying in some peculiar musical tone. At...

Snaps from The Himalayas

Some glimpses of one of the best landscapes in the country. Why long for Alps when our own old, enigmatic yet beautiful Himalayas provide such magnificent and picturesque sceneries!! Have a look. Enjoy. Location - Garhwal Region, Himalayas which lie in the state of Uttrakhand.

Classifying people

One of the important tools used by marketers for identifying potential market is market segmentation, in which subgroup of people or organizations sharing one or more characteristics are grouped together. Using similar concept, people can be segmented based upon their basic philosophy or their basic approach towards life. It might be extremely difficult, as not all may express their beliefs openly. Maybe few sort of weird approaches mentioned below might help. One such method can be segmenting on basis of their movie or book preferences. For example a person whose favorite book is The Fountainhead or 1984 is likely to be different from a person whose favorite books include Sidney Sheldon and likes. Or a person who likes reading The Catcher in the Rye over and over again might be different from the one who prefers Eric Segal instead! Similarly a person whose favorite movies includes likes of Jaane bhi do Yaaron or Rang de Basanti would be different from a person relishing Suraj Bar...