I’ve been enjoying enjoying reading a few sites relating to ‘minimalism’ for a while now. Not the art movements, but more about living life with fewer possessions. They have been inspiring to me. For most of my life, I’ve held on to things, collected things, had major piles of stuff all over the place. As I get older, and honestly as my Buddhist practice deepens, I realize I don’t need a lot of these things.
Over the weekend I had a few hours to myself. This is a rare occurrence and instead of sitting down and watching TV (something I don’t do too often anyways), I turned on some music and went to work on my side of the closet.
I had been meaning to do it for some time and was happy to able to work on it. Going through what I had in there was funny; I guess I had forgotten all the clothes I owned. After not much time at all, I was able to clean out my side of the closet and rid myself of 1/2 of what was in there. This felt great.
An added bonus to this was previously I thought I needed to go shopping for a few shirts. Well, I found shirts I had forgotten about that fit great, so no shopping trip needed.
Now, I’m not convinced I’ll ever ‘qualify’ to really be considered a ‘minimalist’ but it was a good start. What little time it took make a good impact and I plan to continue with other areas of things I own (some of which may very well own me when I really think about it, but that’s another topic).
Here is a list of the ‘Minimalist’ sites I read fairly regularly:
- The Minimalists
- zen habits
- mnmlist
- Unclutterer
- be more with less
- becoming minimalist
- SIMPLE. ORGANIZED. LIFE.
- Slow Change
- Rowdy Kittens — social change through simple living
- The Everyday Minimalist
I’m curious, have any of you gone through a similar change in thinking? Any other sites you recommend on this topic? Would love to hear.