Have a minimalist lifestyle

Lately I’ve been focused on de-cluttering my room. When it’s super clean and minimal, I feel lighter, airier, happier. It’s hard to explain. It’s like my windshield had just been cleaned and the horizon is a lot clearer. I can now focus on anything i want, without any material things impeding me. I’ve been giving a lot to charity, and recycling and throwing out a lot of things. I want my room to consist of a bed, and a dresser, and a lamp.Maybe a clock and 2 pictures. I want my office to only have a desk and a light, and everything else filed away where I can’t see it. Even so, all that stuff that I “can’t” see actually bothers me a lot, which is why I want to get rid of it all. I want to strip myself down to the bare necessities, and even have some luxuries, but only a few.

I read these posts and feel a kindredness with people I have never met. So what is it that draws us to speak out that “stuff’s bad m’kay.” To answer my own question, there is a disease that infects us all. Wether we believe it or not, most of us are unhappy with who we are, what we are doing, hell…who we are with. Why? I have not answer to that. For me, I was and in some respects still am that person. I could not see beauty for beauty and love for love. I could not accept being loved, I could not accept anything about everything that I had become. So I started getting rid of things I felt impeded my “true self.” And what I found is beyond words…..It was hidden so deep down inside of me I fear one more day and it would have been gone forever. I found love, thats the only word I can come up with, everything around me became so much more then a conquest. I didn’t have to change anything around me. It all came from right inside! Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Getting rid of “stuff” to me is not what I see as a minimalist life, it starts inside and the result, is less to obscure your view of what is truly beautiful:)

Be at peace where ever you may find yourself.

I recently had a set of major life changes—at 21 my six month long engagement was ended, I quit a job I had had for two and a half years working in the dorms as a resident assistant (causing me to have to find an apartment and move immediately), and I am about to graduate from college. What I have learned is that I need to do and have less to have and do more. Physically lifting everything I own by myself to move it reminded me how much I have. Loosing my relationship told me how much it taxed me emotionally and prevented me from growing as a healthy person. Quitting my job reminded me that I can change and move, even if it is uncomfortable in the short term. So I have consciously decided to be a minimalist in all aspects of my life.

I have always appreciated minimal interior design (one of my prevailing interests is modern design) and been a bit of an organizational freak, but while my interest and pleasure in minimalism is primarily tied to aesthetics I hope to extend this into my emotional “actual” life. Of course, I want to buy less, favor quality over quantity, and only have what is useful AND beautiful but I need to learn to do the same with the people in my life. Only the positive, truly wonderful people - not the ones I feel obligations to, don’t truly enjoy, or those who I feel judged by - should be in my life. And also, only the important activities too—do I really like my job, my commitments? I need to make money but I can do it by doing what I love or can at least learn to appreciate.

This is probably my most complex pledge.