Goodbye, Things: On Minimalist Living

My feeling is that minimalists are people who know what’s truly necessary for them versus what they may want for the sake of appearance, and they’re not afraid to cut down on everything in the second category.

Perhaps the most important reason for getting out there and engaging with

the world is that the experiences you gain through your actions can never be

taken away from you. Unlike our material possessions, our experiences are

inside ourselves, and we can take them with us any place we go. No matter

what may happen to us, the experiences are ours to keep.

You’ll feel a much richer sense of contentment by building your

experiences rather than buying items, because your experiences resist

comparison with others

So maybe it’s natural that we find our

own originality when we strip away all the things that distract us.

If someone actually gets upset when

they find out that you’ve thrown away something that they gave you in the

past, it means they’re not as concerned about your relationship in the

present. In that case, you may want to distance yourself from that person

anyway. I know I wouldn’t want to become someone who can only convey

feelings of love or friendship through material objects.

All those stores out there pay good sums of money to

secure space so they can stock all sorts of goods for us, and they manage

their items with care. Convenience stores welcome us around the clock.

Yosumi suggests we should not think of these places as shops where we buy

goods, but instead as our warehouses where we go to get something when

we need it.

Leave

only the items that you need moving forward from this very moment.

you might say to yourself that

you’ll get to it someday after things settle down. But we all know that as

long as we’re ruled by our dear old possessions, that day will never come.

It’s tough to come

up with an exact definition of a minimalist as there are bound to be

elements that we’ll end up missing, but my definition of a minimalist is a

person who knows what is truly essential for him- or herself, who reduces

the number of possessions that they have for the sake of things that are

really important to them.

Unless we can see ourselves reflected from another person's perspective, it isn't possible for us to really know our worth.

People can't manage to go on in this world if they don't believe in their own worth. A small amount of self-appreciation and narcissism is indispensable for us to live.

We all want to be happy. We all work hard at our jobs, studies, sports, parenting, or hobbies because when you get right down to it, we're all just looking for happiness. The quintessential energy that drives us is the desire to be happy.