Minimalism

Ever wondered what is everyone trying to ahieve in their life? Well, I believe, inherently everyone is chasing after one thing only - happiness! And it has different face and different meaning for everyone. Few find happiness in others' happiness, helping others, some others by pursuing their interests but most of us try to find happiness in luxury and stuff. And to some extent things do give happiness to people, it provides luxury, a sense of achievement. But it is all an illusion - one that of perfect life because with 'things', there is this big problem - there is always something 'better' coming along the way which creates dissatisfaction. And, nowadays, with social media becoming a prominent part of everyone's life, it makes it even worse with free flow of information using technology. Information about more stuff in the world, better stuff. Advertisements making us believe we need more and we need better.

This is where minimalism comes in. It is a way of living, a consciously chosen lifestyle. It literally means to be or have less. Less replaces more. Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Millburn are a couple of authors, padcasters and public speakers who have been preaching minimalism. It says to create your template of life that suits you irrespective of what the world has been selling to everyone. And it says to create that template with less, extreme spareness and simplicity, to get out of the vicious circle of more and better. It says to value people and experiences over things.

"Value experiences and people over things"

It all starts from the home we live in. We know we all aspire to have the largest and the most luxurious house for us but the research tells us that not more than 40% of the house space is used by the residents on an average. This is the very starting point of excess. We buy more stuff to fill the empty spaces of the house. We buy something not out of need, but out of social pressure, out of compulsion. There have been people trying to live the minimalism way and are way more calm and happy and satisfied in their life. But it is not easy to live the way of minimalism in this modern connected socially hyper aware world.

The social values we carry does not allow us to be minimalists. We value what others think about us, not what we feel inside. Social status is way more important than real happiness. Fast fashion is at the core of this. It applies to everything from apparels to home products to electronics. We stop using items not when they are no longer usable but when they do not possess the social value the next item in queue does. And companies trying to encourage us to live this lifestyle have drove down the prices so low that we don't feel that pinch when we replace such items every week or month. There are 52 seasons in a year now, with trends changing every week and accessibility is as high as ever with online buying. With so low prices and high availability, even the used items do not carry any value which leads to unsustainability. Even to get to such low prices, companies cut corners and start moving towards seatshops which leads to harmful ecological impacts.

Understanding that our shopping patterns can impact the environment around you is the starting point of minimalism. Making people aware of the ecological impact is one way to create impact in the society. Amount of water used in manufacturing a jeans was an eye opener for me. The kind of chemical pollutants released by manufacturing factories is ruining our and future generations' future. We should all try to reduce our carbon footprint by having less in life. Project 333 is one such example where people tried to reduce their apparels and accessories for atleast 3 months to realise that we don't actually need more. Minimalism encourages to think of life as one long travel and one should try to pack light and carry as less as possible with them. It teaches to appreciate small experiences and living in the present moment

Going through different video perspectives and documnentary around minimalism has made me realise that I need to be more cognizant of my actions and my responsibility towards the planet and acosystem. I will definitely try to move one step closer to minimalism even if not all the way. And I will try to make others aware of the same. Hopefully, this post added value to your life, made you aware of the problems we are acing today and what we can start doing at our individual level to try solving the global issues of climate change and ecological sustainability.