Have you ever felt like your life is on auto-pilot? How days are changing and time is fleeting from our hands?
Every job has its own brand of stress, and this assumption led me into believing that what I feel in a daily basis is what every adult has to face. I later realized that however stressful your job is, you don’t need to give in to it.
One morning, when I was laying on my bed thinking of my lacking of motivation to get up, I stumbled across this documentary about minimalist lifestyle. As people tried a project to de-clutter their places, they seemed to end up in a situation that I hoped to find myself in.
The oasis of serenity washed you up, leaving you with a feeling of contentment amidst your bustling life. There is a sense of fulfillment in having less and the idea cannot get any simpler:
Get rid of distractions in your life! Get rid of all the things that will detract from your living a more meaningful life.
Many people cope with daily frustration by shopping and buying. I even used to think that ‘treating myself’ and ‘enjoying life’ can only be achieved by spending. The money we spent for all the unnecessary (sometimes stupid) stuffs came from the hours we sacrificed to earn that. We don’t buy things with money, we buy them with hours from our lives. This is where the calculation starts. With your current wage, how many hours do you have to work to buy the stuff you want?
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average American workers’ hourly wage is $24.57, and plenty still work for less. If you are to buy a wrangler that costs $25,000 you will need to work for a whopping 1017 hours. We don’t suggest that you stop your buying immediately but it is important to be more aware and informed when deciding if your purchase is going to be worth your time. With hindsight, I become more careful about letting things and people in as I will have to invest my time and energy in them.
Being an environmentalist or at least caring about the future of Earth can also give you a chunk of motivation to embrace minimalism. Everything you buy will continue to exist somewhere else. Our stuffs leave a huge carbon footprints. Even though you recycle, it still requires a vast energy and resources. So, until we start reducing, we are still killing the planet (and living being in it).
Becoming a minimalist will shape your buying habit because every time you decide to buy something, you will get accustomed to asking yourself these questions first:
Do I really need this?
Will this purchase add meaning to my life?
Is there any alternative stuffs I have at home?
Since you stop hoarding stuffs, you will have more money to spend on things that will leave positive marks on the journey of your life. Invest in yourself, travel to places, experience as many new things as possible, get education, or even donate! In the end of the day, it will be stories that you are going to tell the world, not how many stuffs you have in your home!