{"id":9370,"date":"2013-02-11T07:11:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T14:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/becomingblog.wpengine.com\/?p=9370"},"modified":"2024-03-13T13:44:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T20:44:59","slug":"dear-loved-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.becomingminimalist.com\/dear-loved-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Son\/Daughter is a Minimalist. This is Good News."},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
Dear Mother\/Father\/Grandparent of a Minimalist,<\/p>\n
I should probably start with a quick introduction. My name is Joshua. I’m 38 years old. I live in Peoria, AZ with my beautiful wife and two wonderful kids. For most of my life, I lived a relatively-typical suburban existence. But then something changed, I decided to become a minimalist.<\/p>\n
For me, the change happened one Saturday afternoon while cleaning my garage. My driveway began to fill up with physical possessions that needed to be cleaned and reorganized. Meanwhile, in the backyard, my son played alone kindly asking me to play with him.<\/p>\n
At one point, I commented to my neighbor about all the time and energy required to maintain my house and my belongings. She replied, “Well, maybe you don’t need to own all this stuff.” I remember the comment like it was yesterday. I looked at the pile of junk in my driveway… I glanced at my young son alone in the backyard… and in that moment, I realized my possessions were not bringing me joy. Even worse, they were distracting me from the things that did. A minimalist was born.<\/p>\n
Today, I wanted to write you a letter.<\/p>\n
Someone you love dearly has recently made the same decision I made years ago. They have decided to intentionally live with fewer possessions. And now, they are forwarding this article to you because they would like to further explain minimalism and their decision.<\/p>\n
Likely, there are a few things they’d like you to know:<\/p>\n
<\/strong>1. Minimalism may be counter-cultural. But the lifestyle is not new\u2014neither is the appeal.<\/strong>\u00a0For thousands of years<\/a>, people have been intentionally choosing to simplify their lives and live with fewer possessions. Minimalism is not new, nor is it a fringe movement. Material possessions have always failed to satisfy the deepest longings of our heart. And it is great to see\u00a0in our world today, simplicity becoming more and more popular.<\/p>\n 2. Minimalism is highly customizable<\/strong>. <\/strong>People embrace minimalism for any number of reasons: travel, entrepreneurship<\/a>, the environment, or\u00a0simply so they can focus more time on the things that matter most. Regardless of the motivation behind the decision, minimalism will always be applied uniquely. It has to be.\u00a0We all enter at different stages in life with different passions.\u00a0As a result, minimalism has no hard-and-fast rules. We are all going to apply it a little bit differently.<\/p>\n