Minimalism

Here we are – Sunday again, and as we prepare for another week, I am back at my #SimpleSunday blog. I probably should have thought more about the order of my posts, but when I first started sharing more on my blog, it was like grasping at straws looking for ideas and the second I had a thought that could be expounded upon, I went with it instead of planning things out. So, maybe I am jumping around a bit, but each post has been a piece in my process.

 

Organization has always been a thing for me but as I have gotten older, I feel like I have gotten worse at it. A very wise person I know told me that it truly does get harder. As you become more aware of the brevity of life, and as you start lose people and find you have emotions that are tied to things, it becomes harder and harder to get rid of things. I think a logical progression, and one I looked hard at, was becoming more minimalist in my approach, because of course, if you have less things it is easier to keep them organized. I bought books, read posts, and watched Netflix movies about minimalism, in an effort to figure out how to simplify my life and much to my surprise, I was disturbed by what I saw in minimalism. 

Everyone knows that hoarding is a psychological disorder and we know that having a lot of things can create dangerous and unhealthy living situations and what I have observed is that when something is determined to be bad, like a pendulum, people swing in the opposite direction and think that’s better. But I feel like minimalism is the opposite end of the same bad stick. 

 

With the exception of books, I really like my books, I could probably get rid of a lot of things and live quite happily, but not everyone is like that. My husband lost his mom when he was 12 and has only his oldest brother left out of 3 brothers, parents, and grandparents – he still has a train his mom bought him before she died and he has numerous other things connected to family that he is very attached to. He will not get rid of them, and I am not asking him to let go of those things. 

You see, I watched as people talked about owning two backpacks full of stuff and how it made them nervous to acquire more than that as they wanted to be able to pick and go anytime they wanted. Yes, it was easy for them to pick up and go, but they had no roots, no grounding, and in some situations the desire to be minimalist was in conflict with what other family members wanted – some of it struck me as just as unhealthy as too much stuff. 

That’s when I realized that I want - what I think most people want is balance and balance is hard to quantify. That’s why there are so many self-help books on organization and simplifying your life – because what qualifies as too much or too little is different for everyone and the solutions to the problem are just as varied.

 

It was a relief to realize that getting rid of everything wasn’t the answer for me – a minimalistic life felt like one more unreachable goal, but balance, balance feels more attainable. How I achieve balance will be part of the topic next time. 😊