Love people + use things, because the opposite never works – The Minimalists
In a world where the “American Dream” is constantly being thrown at you through endless media channels it can be hard to cut through the noise of what you really need to be happy vs what actually makes you happy.
With Spring Cleaning upon us and the Kondo Method buzzing in our brains it’s the perfect time to assess what is truly meaningful in our lives to spark that joy and turn it into wildfire!
As humans, we often look for more meaning in our lives (sometimes in all the wrong places), but it is never too late to make meaningful strides towards a better self + community if you feel like you’ve gone off track a bit. Ask yourself: “I am living for something, but in this moment what am I truly living for?” Then, is the your answer to that question the direction you want to be headed in – more importantly as our girl Marie Kondo puts it “does this spark joy?”
Considering I’ve browsed through my house replying ‘yes’ to less than 5% of my possessions, Goodio Chai Craft Chocolate being one of them, I’d say I need to reevaluate. It may be obvious that of course not all items apply as some things are simply necessary to have in life, like laundry detergent and toilet paper, but then again clean clothes and bums probably make most people happy.
For those Netflix documentary fanatics (we’re just as guilty), The Minimalist: A Documentary About the Important Thing is a great watch to help reset and evaluate your current status. This film follows alongside two iconic minimalists, Josh + Ryan, on a 21 day minimalistic journey. These two men had achieved everything society deemed as successful, yet they still weren’t happy. They had 6 figure jobs, drove luxury cars and lived in big homes with the intention of being content. However, they learned when bigger moments in life struck, aka death and divorce, none of that brought them comfort or happiness. During this journey they set out on the pursuit of more – more time, more passion, more experiences, more growth, and more contribution to the world. What they found was that inadvertently enjoying life’s most important things, are not ‘things’ at all.
They found that most people worship indulgence and consumption, however, those acts don’t satisfy human longing for meaning. They learned through this journey, people think they need things, because they’ve been told they need things by society. In this journey, they discovered through Project 333 that sometimes de-cluttering starts and ends with your closet by dressing with 33 items (clothing, accessories + shoes) for 3 months. While it is agreed that decluttering is not the goal of minimalism but rather a key component to a life with more room for what really matters.
How will you live life with less to make room for what really matters?
