Never underestimate the importance of removing stuff you don’t need.
Encouragement provides us with motivation to persevere. It invites us to dream dreams of significance for our lives. And it begs us to work diligently with optimism and promise.
Overcoming the pull of consumerism is a difficult challenge regardless of our stage in life. Simplicity requires encouragement. To that end, I hope you will find motivation in these articles below.
Each post was intentionally chosen to inspire simplicity in your life. For maximum effect, find a quiet moment this weekend and enjoy them with a fresh cup of coffee or tea.
Drowning in her Possessions, Jennifer Turned to a ‘Freeing’ New Lifestyle | Sydney Morning Herald by Evelyn Lewin. For years, opulence was considered the key to happiness. When it came to houses, “it” bags and cars, the attitude was the more the merrier. But thinking has shifted and there are now those who’ve found the real route to serenity is having less.
A Case for Holistic Minimalism in the Philippines | Rappler by Joy Therese Gomez. Essentially, a minimalist is not someone who owns little to no possessions; but a person who has specified what she values most in life, thereafter removing everything else that distracts from it.
Is It Hoarding, Collecting, or Archiving? Keep? Toss? | Psychology Today by Gina Barreca Ph.D. It’s hard to accept that stuff we treasure is not valuable to others. Not everyone sees the same potential, or the same uselessness, in an item.
The Financial Freedom of Owning Less | The Public Opinion by Rick Kahler. The control of an asset is often even more valuable than ownership.
Decluttering is Great. Minimalism is Better. | Joshua Becker on YouTube
I Love all of your videos and articles you’ve made. They Inspires me to do a lot..And i am Happy to Live a Peaceful life with your ideas..
I’ve struggled for years to combine money management thriftiness with simplicity. I’ve never seen anything written. If I’m trying to conserve everything I have to save money, how does that fit with clearing all consumables / clutter?
I like the article about Jennifer Burger. I embraced Voluntary Simplicity years ago and it can be very freeing, to know you are taking control to do what you can to live more lightly on the planet.
It is all about choices and like you say Joshua it is not a one size fits all journey.
For me a tough concept to deal with is that we do now live in a throw away society full of mindless consumerism. But I choose not to live that way and others can too.
I watched you video yesterday about the difference between decluttering and minimalism & got a little more inspired to get motivated. I am going to continue that today as I look at a few cleared out areas in my home.
Am having great difficulty with all the paper stuff-photos; kids drawings/ momentos; albums; scrapbooks; files; slides, etc.
Daily life has me taking 2 steps forward and 3 back, and overnight the piles seem to have babies and the previous organization obtained unravels and retangles.
Have already gone thru the bins of the above more than once and each time reduced the # of bins and piles, but there are still more than is feasible but don’t know how to cut thru it once and for all.
Thanks for any suggestions!
Kris
Kris—I totally know your frustration! I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel of decluttering. In the beginning I felt down on myself because I couldn’t clear it all and make firm decisions in one sitting. Now I realize that it’s part of a wonderful process of learning what is important to me and going through the phases of letting go. If I don’t go too fast I have no regret.
Something from one of these articles struck me too… are you holding onto material things to make you feel more material? I don’t want to be stuck energetically to my things. So perhaps letting them go with more abandon will feel even more freeing. I bet once your things are gone you will feel so much lighter. You can use that sensation to keep moving ever forward. Good luck with it and know that wherever you are in the process is perfect for you:)
Kris – it will get easier. I found it helpful take pictures periodically to help me see I was making progress. When you are living it day to day it is hard to measure the progress.
For kid artwork, we tried the “save the best” approach and everything had to fit into a single box/kid. A few years ago the boxes were full. We had the now teenaged kids go through the material and decide what they wanted to keep. They wondered why we kept so much as they didn’t recall 90% of the items. We took photos of the items they didn’t want to keep and then we recycled these items. They both ended up keeping less 5 pieces.
For photos, we did a big effort a few years ago to sort everything by year/event. If we could not remember who was in the picture or if picture was blurry or duplicate, out it went. We were able to get the photos into a single box. We have slowly been scanning the photos by year. Scanning is a lot of effort (we do it home on our printer/scanner and add tags to each photo) so we further reduce each time it’s time to scan more photos.
Decluttering is a journey and will evolve as you age or life circumstances change. You can do this.
I truly love living with less clutter and distraction. It is so freeing.