My experiment with Minimalism (And yes, I fold my panties now!)
“Minimalism is just the beginning. It’s a tool. Once you’ve gone ahead and minimized, it’s time to find out what those important things are. Minimalism”
― Fumio Sasaki, Goodbye Things
To rise above the strings of material possessions, Minimalism is an amazing path. Once you are curious, the path that unfolds through the discovery is more beautiful than you can think of. The best part is, you can create your own way of adopting this method of discarding whatever is in excess and no longer serves the purpose. And that my friend, goes beyond things.
My things don’t pay my rent and above all don’t pay me an hourly wage to get occupied with them — Mehar (Self-Quoter)
2018, I listened to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo and Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism, by Fumio Sasaki. Then I listened to both the books again at the beginning of 2019, just to learn a little more than what I absorbed last time. Ironically, the Art of Minimalism impacts many aspects of our lives, yet simple once put into practice.
It changed my life, slowly but drastically
One fine day, I got home after work, it was 6 p.m. and I had time on my hand, no chores from my never ending to-do-list. That’s when I knew this practice has finally giving me results.
It is the list of to-do things that keeps us from gaining control and finding the power to choose how we want to spend our time. Don’t we all tell ourselves about that “One-Day” we will take out time to engage in certain activity that brings us joy? And we talk about taking out time instead of realizing that the time is always at our disposal, we just need to step back, reset our priorities and dive in to realize the goals we have.
The day I realized that I have 3 and half hours before going to bed, to engage in anything I wanted to, I felt like I had gotten rid of a nonpaying guest. I sure do know that my things DON’T PAY ANY OF MY RENT or an hourly wage to keep sorting them.
My habit has always been to discard an entire idea by assuming that I will never be able to fully adopt it and giving into my laziness and a limiting belief that undermines my will power to change habits. But this time I decided to follow whatever I could and made sure to be happy with whatever I could get away with without having any pressure on me. And that’s the reason I returned to these authors to add a little more each time.
What did I learn?
Things have a virtual noise
All those times when we find clutter that needs our attention and it immediately creates a sense of anxiety and panic. More often than not. we just let it sit how it is. The magnitude of the aversion that this cluttered scene causes is a direct measure of the virtual noise it just made, which also sometimes dictates whether we actually go down on cleaning it or not. But the simple solution is :
Lesser items lesser virtual noise. Period.
Say ‘see you later’ before you say ‘goodbye’
Minimalism practice allows room to create your own approach towards simpler living. Sasaki’s tip on saying ‘see you later’ before you say goodbye simplified the process for me because I didn’t face instant separation anxiety but also eased into the habit. If it is not a hard yes, maybe it is just a ‘maybe’. Attachment for physical items may stem from many different reasons.
I decided to put things away in a box under my bed, when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep them or not. I took a picture of the items, just so I can locate them when I need them. And I slowly started getting rid of things I hadn’t used in weeks or months.
My extra items hide under my bed and they don’t scare me ;)
Respecting my wardrobe.
I fold my panties, yes!
It may sound cheesy but our clothes provide us with the service of covering our lady/gentleman parts, give us an opportunity to walk around with respect and let us flaunt the personality they add to us. That’s why now my closet is arranged in the best possible way it ever has been. I do laundry happily and it now takes 50% less time than it used to. I make sure to complete the process of folding and giving my clothes space rather that letting them feel abandoned. I got rid of more that 50 items in 3 cleaning drives and was able to revamp my closet.
Repeating the attires I absolutely love
If you look good in something, repeat it. No one cares what you wear.
I come from an Indian family and our weddings are 4–5 functions each and there is always someone getting married. Ask anyone, women will always try to find a new attire for each wedding and each function. So if you attended 2 weddings this year and total 8 functions you need approx. 10 new attires so that no one points out that you have repeated your clothes. And these attires are traditional and formal so there is no way you can wear them everyday. Imagine the time, money and effort that goes into all that. Although there is this spoken concern about repeating outfits, I don’t see a reason not to do so. I have my go-to little black dress for every party and that can be dressed down or dressed up depending on the occasion. I feel great!
My Personal Uniform
Repeating the clothing style helps find out the personal uniform and hence your personal brand that will make you stand out. Well I am not quite there yet where Steve Jobs was and Mark Zuckerberg is, wearing the same outfit everyday. I blame it on the fact that it is always harder on the women to choose fashion and at the end I am not coming up with a better idea than a turtle neck t-shirt and black trousers to walk around in all day. But I am open to the idea of trying it someday. And I have already started making progress. Once I got rid of the things I wasn’t happy wearing or should I say, things that no longer gave me joy or honestly were just torn or tight or loose, I allowed myself to splurge a little to have some good quality clothing from many stores to choose from. Whatever sparked my curiosity was helping me envision my own design in my mind. Now I have encouraged myself to create a capsule wardrobe with everything that keeps my frequency higher. Marie Kondo discourages from keeping old shabby clothes for lounge or sleepwear. And I didn’t understand that until I tried it. Now instead of having 5 sets of pajamas that were at some point nice out going clothes, I have two pairs of nice and soft actual pajamas. Really keeps me joyful as I sip coffee lounging around writing my Medium posts.
Watch out my feed …to be continued…there’s more to this practice than I can capture in one article!
