The Most Important Lessons of 10 Years of Minimalism

I want to talk about one of my favorite topics with you today and that is minimalism. And I can't really believe that it's already been 10 years since I have been like decluttering my life, becoming a minimalist, living according to minimalist principles. On the other hand, it's so second nature to me that for the most time I don't like consider myself a minimalist as like a part of my identity. It's just what makes sense to me. And today I'm here to talk about the most important things that I have learned even now after 10 years of being a minimalist. And because this is about minimalism, we're not going to talk about like 57 most important lessons that you all need to know. No, I'm going to focus on the three main things that I think are very, very important and go a bit deeper so that we can actually like think about it and discuss further in the comments. I think let's start where most minimalism journeys start with decluttering. And of course, I have started with decluttering as well. And I think most people do and most people kind of have to because we start with a lot of excess stuff. But for a sustainable minimalism journey, meaning that you have long term goals and visions in mind, I think decluttering is actually not very important. I even go so far that I try to not declutter if possible. I have made videos about that. I'm going to link one for you up here to check out where I go further into it. Basically, what I'm saying is decluttering is really not important, or it's definitely not going to be a solution as long as we don't pay attention to what comes into our lives. Because we all know we're just going to end up in the same situation again. And we can see it on YouTube, where a lot of people do a huge declutter. But a year later, they're doing just as huge of a declutter because they're overwhelmed again, because they have too many clothes again. And now I'm not trying to shame anyone, because living in this world in a capitalist society that encourages us to buy all the things with advertisement, with us like defining ourselves so much with the things we own, I totally understand why it is so hard to stop buying a ton of things and therefore ending up just needing to declutter again and again and again. But if we really want to make a change, if we really want to change our lives with minimalism, I think we need to pay more attention to what comes into our lives. Now, there are different methods to do that. And one of them is a no buy. But again, I am not really a huge fan of a no buy. I think low buys are the better option. And I'm going to talk a lot more about that. In the video, I'm again linking you up here. Again, basically, it's just that we want sustainable solutions. And with a no buy, you're you're never going to do a no buy for the rest of your life. And so I think developing habits that make it possible for us to consume differently to really change our consumption habits to a slow and low buy continually where we don't feel like we're missing out on anything. We don't feel like we are punishing ourselves or something, but we just feel like we can shift away our focus and into a more sustainable way of consumption that is sustainable for the planet, for our wallets and for our mental health, because we don't want to be overwhelmed again with a ton of stuff. So while I think this first point is really, really important, we need to focus more on what comes in and not put all of the attention on the things we declutter or decluttering generally when it comes to minimalism. I think the second point is just as important. And it's definitely a trap that I have fallen into a lot during my first years of minimalism. And that is that our relationship to stuff has to change because there's a problem. If we start out focusing on stuff, meaning we want to buy all the things because all of the things look cute. We think we need all of the things immediately. We buy and buy and buy and are overwhelmed with stuff. We focus too much on stuff. That's clear, right? But if we then shift our focus to decluttering, kind of going through our apartment and thinking, what else could I declutter? I love this feeling of freshly having decluttered a huge amount of things and this is so freeing and this is the solution. I just need to declutter a bit more. Is there anything else that I don't really need? Could I not just declutter a bit more? I We never stop obsessing about stuff. And so what I then thought for many years, and that's like the first step, like, oh, well, we need to really change our relationship to things. We need to stop focusing so much on stuff, no matter if it's about buying all the things or if it's about decluttering all the things. We need to kind of change our attachment and the importance we give to the things that surround us. So maybe we should just not care. We should just be very, very rational when we think about the things we own and have maybe a set number of sweaters we can own. As soon as one is coming in, we need to declutter another one because, you know, stuff is not important. Over the last few years, and especially during this last year, I think I realized that maybe it didn't quite cut it. And I do realize that stuff can be important to a certain amount. Like, it's totally okay if you have a certain attachment to your things, if you value things, if you're really grateful for things. And I think that is actually where I arrived after 10 years of minimalism, realizing that we can have a relationship with our things. And that is actually better than using our things as a means to satisfy a certain craving, to satisfy a feeling of not being enough, to feeling like, for example, that this advertisement tells me I need to buy this because without this, I'm not complete, and then once I have it, I'll be fine. And on the other hand, being like, all this stuff doesn't mean anything, I need to declutter and get rid of everything because it's useless crap. No, I think valuing resources, because that is what it is, right? Our planet has a finite amount of resources. And in our human history, over the thousands of years, we have learned to use our surroundings to make tools and make clothes. For example, the sweater, I made this a few years ago, and I thought it's time to kind of wear it a bit more again. So it makes sense to me that we value belongings. It makes sense to me that we have a certain amount of things that we really care about. If we realise that these things make our lives so much easier, and maybe we even have some just sentimental attachment to some stuff that's not actually like useful, but that still makes our lives a lot better. And so I think this conclusion with this second point about minimalism that I think is really, really important is that we shouldn't just change our obsession with stuff from accumulating it to then decluttering it. We also shouldn't just think stuff has no meaning at all, because before we put so much money and meaning into things. No, we should, again, maybe approach it in a slower, more intentional way. Valuing the things we own, being grateful for the things that make our lives better, acknowledging that we have a relationship with our things, that we as humans are used to having things and benefit from owning things, but that we see them as what they are, right? They are not a means to happiness directly, while they can make our lives easier. They are not gonna make us the person we see in the advertisement, but even decluttering will not make us the freest person on earth. Because if we just have an extreme minimalist amount of things, and I learned that the hard way, life gets more complicated again, because you don't have the appropriate tools to do the things you want to do, maybe. A good middle way is where we want to go, but you see, it's a bit complex. And that is actually where I want to go with my third point. And that is definitely something that has more so been a realization of this past year, maybe, coming up on 10 years of minimalism. Minimalism often is proclaimed as something to make our lives simple and easy, right? Because if we have less things, we have less to worry about. We have less to clean, we have less to maintain, we have less to move if we want to move, all of these things that makes our life easier. And so for the longest time, my goal with minimalism has been, because that's what I heard people talk about, that's what I thought just makes sense, right? So my goal with minimalism has been making my life simple and easy and frictionless. But I realized that everything is crazy complex. We as human beings are very, very complex. We're not just, I don't know, a puppet to market something to, and a minimalist who can sport a Pinterest capsule wardrobe with 20 pieces and be happy with the same 20 pieces for the next 20 years. It's just, life is not that simple. Our world is not that simple. And so I kind of changed my mind. Like, yes, I love that minimalism makes things easier. And I mean, that's really part of the point. It should make my life less expensive, less stressful. I should need less space. I should need less time to clean and all of these things. But what I'm now thinking is that minimalism is not here to make my life easy. It's here to make it possible for me to acknowledge the complexity. And I think maybe it's similar to politics sometimes. The goal is not having people tell you super easy solution to complex problems, because that is just populism. And that is usually not honoring human rights. So it's the same with minimalism. It's not about just powering through and making everything super clean and easy, because we are complex. That's not the solution. That's not going to be a long term good solution. The solution we need is, yes, making some things easier, some things streamlined, some things less stressful, to have the energy and the time and the resources for the complex things. Because if I would just want to make everything easy, then I maybe would close my eyes to things that are really important. And that's also what I sometimes realized during the past few years, and also during this past year, that maybe even though I wanted to have everything as simple as possible, own less things, I then again had the urge to wear jewelry. And that's not minimalist. There's no reason to do it if there's no necessity. And I was also not 100% sure about it. But then I thought, why not? Why not embrace this kind of phase or whatever it is? And I bought a piece of jewelry in Morocco. It's since broke, and I'll have just a piece of metal in my ear. I've been thinking about getting another piercing. And a part of me is just like, but this is not minimalist. It could be more minimalist. But then on the other hand, I'm like, yeah, but there's no point in just trying to be the most minimalist person possible. It's the same with my queerness. Actually, I got a hate comment where someone says, your whole queerness thing is not minimalist. Just stay simple and minimalist. No, it's not about that. Because I can be a happier person. I can be a better person. I can be more myself. And I can live my life in a better way if I acknowledge the complexities that live within me and on this planet. And therefore, it's okay if I keep things that I'm not 100% sure about. If I do a hobby, if I try out something new, if I buy something or get something, because I get a lot of things for free if you ask around and buy nothing groups and things like this. If I try out new things, if things change, because we are complex. And I think we wouldn't do ourselves justice. And it would just be a waste of, I don't know, lifetime if we tried for the sake to be a good minimalist, to make sense, to put ourselves into smaller boxes than the space we need. That being said, I still have very important values. I still try to live very sustainably, minimally, frugally. I try to live ethically. And all of these things sometimes maybe stifle a little bit of the freedom that I would have if I just did not care about planet and people on it. But that's not the point, right? Because it's complex. I am taking these values into account. I am trying to simplify my life and be a good person and try living sustainably and everything. And that's the beauty of it. Minimalism has its place here. Minimalism has its place in my life. And it will continue to be like this for the upcoming 10 years, I'm sure. But it's not the single goal I'm aiming for. Because I'm a person and I want to live my life, I don't want to be a good example of a minimalist. I think this kind of brings me to the end of this video. These were the three most important things when it comes to minimalism that have just been really important to me still after 10 years. Paying attention to what comes in over obsessing about decluttering. Paying attention to the relationship we have with things. Because if we just obsess about buying and then obsess about decluttering, we're not really a step further. And then the third thing is taking the simplicity that minimalism gives us, but using that to embrace the complexity that we are as a species and as a planet and as life in general. And I don't know if that's too philosophical. And I would just in general like to know your thoughts and opinions and maybe lessons you learn about minimalism, things you think are really important, because I'm sure there's more. Let me know down below in the comments. I'm so glad you're here. And I am gonna link you another video right here that you can check out if you want to see even more of me right now. Other than that, there's Patreon, where I don't upload regular episodes of my podcast right now, but you can still sign up and just be charged one and listen to the almost 150 episodes that are already on there. And I do hope to see you, you know, there or here or in my next video or somewhere else. And until then, goodbye.