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We live in the age of consumerism. From the bright New York billboards that shimmer with excitement with every new product release to the ginormous queues that half-off TVS form each and every black Friday, to the unseeingly vital misconception that with harsher economic times, the world may just end, it has become clear – and it pains me to say this – that we live in age where money thrives emotional experiences – where our material goods have dethroned us.

Yet, as if a light in the dark – in a moment of quietness – the idea of Minimalism, a philosophy based on making more of life with less, reaches us so abruptly, nearly controversial. But after spending roughly a year and a half studying and doing everything Minimalism, I think I am finally ready to share my journey as a minimalist, and ultimately how it has impacted my day to day life.

How it all started

Shenzhen at night. Taken from elevation

Being born and raised in Brazil, a country that is as beautiful as it is lacking in opportunities, I wasn’t necessarily rich, and as such, much of my childhood was spent wondering how it must be like to be able to buy whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. In a sense, despite lacking what many in other more developed countries took for granted, consumerism was inherently a part of me, something I couldn’t control – and as much as life forced me to simply think about the very next moment, I found a sense of gratification in thinking about the extremely distant future.

Looking back it now as a half-decent Minimalist, it is moments like these that make me realise just how much philosophical coherence the “movement” has. As sad as it may be to admit it, whether you’re Brazilian, African, Chinese or American, we are all born and trained to shoot for the stars. Whether it be the American dream of becoming economically independent or the international idea that a happy life is one successfully settled in a big house, a fast car and good-looking clothes – we are all conditionally taught that materialism is an undeniably natural part of us.

To me this idea became even more clear when I was barely 13, and as a result of my dad losing his job in Brazil, we now found ourselves in Shenzhen, a sprawling technological district in China where seemingly everyone agreed that the only way to enjoy a better life was to work harder, and make more. From Taobao, an easily convenient eBay esque service, to WeChat Pay, which allows netizens to pay for everything from a bar of chocolate to their next real estate empire with a few taps on their phones, I found myself in a land where convenience combined with a social agreement that buying was a natural part of life ultimately led to a society that was flooded in material goods – but wasn’t necessarily sure of their individual values as people.

Nevertheless, whereas many may think that this is simply a stage of life, it came upon me while I was studying for a difficult school exam that every time I wanted something in my room, I had to embark on an endless journey of looking through shelves in order to find necessarily what I needed. It was then that I came to a grandiose realisation that it wasn’t myself, but my obsessive gravitation towards buying material goods that ultimately caused most of my stress in life.

Come Minimalism, an idea that I first heard of while endlessly browsing YouTube, and that at first sounded like a crazy cult of freaks trying to push their blame onto the things they owned – yet I somehow connected to this, the idea that I had shopped myself away, given my personality to a shop owner with each credit card swipe and simply become a consumeristic robot like the rest of the crowd. This made me genially depressed, and wanting to do something, I continued to watch video upon video in order to learn more about this lifestyle and start applying it to myself.

The Journey

Maybe one day. Taken from popsugar

A year and a half later, and unlike what many may think, no, Minimalism isn’t some coffee appreciating cult that throws away a bunch of stuff. We are people that don’t care about the “-ism”, we are people that take a deeper look within in order to express ourselves more clearly outside – allow me to explain.

Take a moment and look around your room, the random books, the dirty clothes on the ground, the video games, the TV and for a moment try to ask yourself whether each of these items were a result of an impulse purchase or are actually part of you. It is this moment of honesty and realisation that we give in to material values that don’t match our philosophical and ethical values which ultimately define the goal of Minimalism.

For me, this was realising that I was buying books simply to look smart. Buying clothes endlessly to helplessly fit some latest fashion trend. Switching my smartphone every half year in order to have the latest and greatest – my childhood dream of wanting to buy whatever whenever had been semi-reached, but this to me did not speak of happiness nor self-representation.

So, I reconsidered all my personal values, my hobbies, and what I valued in life. I then laid all my personal belongings on the floor, made a pile of the ones that ultimately speak to me and these aforementioned values, and anything that didn’t fit the list was either sold or thrown away depending on its condition. While this may have not been economically smart, it was the first step towards achieving the freedom that I now understood would benefit me -thus, by taking a leap of faith, I was making my first true move towards salvation.

Don’t get me wrong however, because when I say that it took me one year a half to continuously repeat this process, I really do mean it. Being honest with yourself and attempting to fully realise who you are meant to be is hard, sometimes tedious and ultimately requires an insane level of meditation. What this also means, is that whether it be a year and a half or ten years, my journey towards my perfect view of Minimalism will never be fully realised. I still have problems on letting go of some harmful habits, I still feel the impulse to buy something from time to time, but it was by making the first step that I am now at the very least better than where I was one year and a half ago.

Resources

I know starting out may be difficult, as it certainly was for me. For this reason, below you may find some of the resources that were of great help in kickstarting my Minimalist journey. Since this is the first post in my blog, expect me to discuss more in-depth topics about Minimalism in the following weeks. You may also follow me on Instagram, where I will be sharing new blog posts and great resources as I come across them.

Matt D’Avella: A deeply creative and highly motivational YouTuber who sells you into Minimalism with incredibly catchy videos and podcasts.

The Minimalism Reddit Community: A place for new and old Minimalist to ask questions and share tips about their Minimalist journey.

GoodBye, Things: My favourite book – and the inspiration for this website – shares a beautifully crafted telling of a Japanese man’s journey into the deepest levels of eastern minimalism.